From the responses I received, it's clear that I inadvertently wrote some flamebait.
I certainly don't advocate criminal charges for designers of insecure systems, as you might see for a civil engineer. I was trying to suggest that the core of the problem - insecure systems - is lost in the he-said-she-said of hackers vs douchebag-beureaucrats.
Your argument about "no such thing as a secure system" applies just as well to life-safety engineering. Rare, unforeseen events can have huge consequences. You build a bridge to code, and then one day you get wind-gusts at the exact right resonant frequency, and the bridge collapses.
No one gets blamed, but the cause is reviewed and the codes are updated and the next guy who forgets them gets in trouble.
There are a number of well-known attacks for which there is no longer any excuse. SQL injection is one of those. Now, software tends to be more complex than civil engineering, so I don't expect perfection from systems. But I do expect web-connected software to be written as if it's being attacked all the time (it is), and for security holes to be taken as seriously as that warrants.
Other responses have suggested that a civil engineer wouldn't be held accountable if their building collapsed due to sabotage. I argue that they certainly would if all public buildings were being sabotaged all the time, and their particular building collapsed from a molotov cocktail.
== As an aside, I also take some exception to the claim that there "is no such thing as a secure system". When we see security failures like this one, it's not through social engineering or physical access. It's through a standard HTTP(s) request. It is possible design a secure system given that assumption.
Yes, router or server security issues can open security holes. And for non-trivial software, it's effectively impossible to prove that a system is secure. But provable or not, there are plenty of systems on the web that can be used exactly as permitted, while not exposing a single security flaw when accessed over HTTP(s). Secure.
You know, we blame civil engineers when their buildings collapse, maybe it's time to start blaming computer "engineers" when their systems do. Now, I know first-hand how hard it is to design secure computer systems, and I'm well aware there's a fine line between "holding to account" and a witchhunt, but we're nowhere near that line as it stands.
In every single one of these stories I hear the mainstream media gasp about the "dangerous hacker". I see/. complain about morons who treat technical curiosity as an attack. But those comments outnumber 10:1 the most important question that you just asked.
How on earth did they produce such a hopelessly stupid system?
Maybe if we could get everyone asking this question, the conversation would shift.
Seriously, the only possible way to answer this question is to follow through with the experiment. Legal precedent can't be made without test cases, and current legal framework has never needed to define "person" outside of our species.
My guess - in the context of Western countries - is that if the resulting being is able to communicate - vocally, written, or fluent signing - they would be considered a legal person. If not directly through the courts, then through legislation resulting from the eventual public outcry.
And if we, as a species, intend to follow through on creating sapient experimental animals, then this won't be the last decision by a long shot. What about creatures created from whole cloth (custom from-scratch DNA) or human-animal hybrids? Any of which may or may not have all the mental faculties of your average (or sub-average) human?
All of this is going to be determined in the courts. And in the unlikely event it becomes prevalent, I'm an optimist. I think we're actually going to see a more nuanced and enlightened view of "lower" animals and a discussion of the line at which "livestock" become "slaves".
Not to mention that travel to another star system could be achieved with tremendous breakthroughs in ecology and sociology (self-sustaining ecosystems for long space travel plus a social system that could allow it), or biology, AI and robotics ("seed ship" containing test tube babies and robots smart enough to raise them)
But...wouldn't it make more sense to build a case on a strong foundation, so the same tactics can be applied against the next thousand upload sites?
Maybe you're right, and their vendetta is solely against MegaUpload. In that case, they win. But in terms of fighting upload sites or piracy, these tactics might win a battle, but will definitely lose a war.
No it's not. The meaning of "reintroduction of extinct toad" is orders of magnitude more impressive than "reintroduction of toads extinct in the wild". I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so.
That's fair, but I don't see it happening without a concrete goal to get us there. I'd be happy with plans for a moon/asteroid belt/Mars colony, as long as we're taking the long view and asking how to build a self-sustaining space colony with minimal materials.
The bottom line is, we don't know just how rare intelligent life is in the universe, and I'd hate to see it disappear.
But if an asteroid impact blows most of earth's atmosphere and water into space, and we haven't had practice setting up a self-sustaining system on Mars - what chance do we have on earth?
Hmm - maybe you should rephrase the question. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
I disagree with the idea that the Big Bang should be chosen as the "official" reference frame, but I don't want to argue that point. If we assume that the sum of the CMB is "stopped", that fact doesn't really lead to any new knowledge.
If I'm travelling at 0.8c compared to the sun, then I will be slowed down by a factor of 0.6 - when viewed from the sun. This fact doesn't change whether the frame of reference is Earth, the CMB, or anything else.
So given the fact that experiments come out the same regardless of the "official" frame of reference, I really don't see the point of just arbitrarily assigning the CMB this special status - except maybe as some sort of interstellar navigational standard. Certainly not for any scientific reasons.
Yeah - the question itself seems to lend itself to a lot of inconsistencies. For instance, what is a "photon at rest", since a photon is described in the context of changing EM fields, which produces a very definite value (c) as to its velocity.
As you say, maybe the photon does "see" an infinite mass, but because we're considering it to be at rest, it has zero mass (by definition, a photon has zero rest mass), so it doesn't actually experience any gravity?
Or maybe the question itself is nonsense to someone who knows what they're talking about:)
Slashdot Mirror
Few things make you seem as ignorant as when you insist on typing "X-Box" instead of "Xbox". I'm the biggest fucking grammar Nazi on the planet
You may be a grammar Nazi, but I'm an accuracy Nazi, and I have to make exception to that statement.
For instant, being an anti-vaccination advocate would make you seem more ignorant.
I could care less what you watch, but if you claim Fox News is fair and balance, you probably seem more ignorant.
I would of listed more, but its getting late. Their are alot more examples out they're if you look.
Don't accuse the OP of nonsense. He is a knower of 4 corner simultaneous 24 hour Days that occur within a single 4 corner rotation of Earth.
That way, john, john, and john can all have different names.
(In unicode, the o's are o, ο, and о...or they would be, if /. encoded Unicode correctly)
...flying toasters were a cultural meme.
Those days haven't gone - they've just evolved. Now it's flying toasted foods, combined with lolcats.
Well then. I find myself agreeing with everything you say, so let's leave it at that.
From the responses I received, it's clear that I inadvertently wrote some flamebait.
I certainly don't advocate criminal charges for designers of insecure systems, as you might see for a civil engineer. I was trying to suggest that the core of the problem - insecure systems - is lost in the he-said-she-said of hackers vs douchebag-beureaucrats.
Your argument about "no such thing as a secure system" applies just as well to life-safety engineering. Rare, unforeseen events can have huge consequences. You build a bridge to code, and then one day you get wind-gusts at the exact right resonant frequency, and the bridge collapses.
No one gets blamed, but the cause is reviewed and the codes are updated and the next guy who forgets them gets in trouble.
There are a number of well-known attacks for which there is no longer any excuse. SQL injection is one of those. Now, software tends to be more complex than civil engineering, so I don't expect perfection from systems. But I do expect web-connected software to be written as if it's being attacked all the time (it is), and for security holes to be taken as seriously as that warrants.
Other responses have suggested that a civil engineer wouldn't be held accountable if their building collapsed due to sabotage. I argue that they certainly would if all public buildings were being sabotaged all the time, and their particular building collapsed from a molotov cocktail.
==
As an aside, I also take some exception to the claim that there "is no such thing as a secure system". When we see security failures like this one, it's not through social engineering or physical access. It's through a standard HTTP(s) request. It is possible design a secure system given that assumption.
Yes, router or server security issues can open security holes. And for non-trivial software, it's effectively impossible to prove that a system is secure. But provable or not, there are plenty of systems on the web that can be used exactly as permitted, while not exposing a single security flaw when accessed over HTTP(s). Secure.
You know, we blame civil engineers when their buildings collapse, maybe it's time to start blaming computer "engineers" when their systems do. Now, I know first-hand how hard it is to design secure computer systems, and I'm well aware there's a fine line between "holding to account" and a witchhunt, but we're nowhere near that line as it stands.
In every single one of these stories I hear the mainstream media gasp about the "dangerous hacker". I see /. complain about morons who treat technical curiosity as an attack. But those comments outnumber 10:1 the most important question that you just asked.
How on earth did they produce such a hopelessly stupid system?
Maybe if we could get everyone asking this question, the conversation would shift.
Seriously, the only possible way to answer this question is to follow through with the experiment. Legal precedent can't be made without test cases, and current legal framework has never needed to define "person" outside of our species.
My guess - in the context of Western countries - is that if the resulting being is able to communicate - vocally, written, or fluent signing - they would be considered a legal person. If not directly through the courts, then through legislation resulting from the eventual public outcry.
And if we, as a species, intend to follow through on creating sapient experimental animals, then this won't be the last decision by a long shot. What about creatures created from whole cloth (custom from-scratch DNA) or human-animal hybrids? Any of which may or may not have all the mental faculties of your average (or sub-average) human?
All of this is going to be determined in the courts. And in the unlikely event it becomes prevalent, I'm an optimist. I think we're actually going to see a more nuanced and enlightened view of "lower" animals and a discussion of the line at which "livestock" become "slaves".
No one's suggesting we breed with it - merely that we incubate it using our best tool for such tasks.
Try using quotes.
"c sucks" - About 21,200 results
"objective c sucks" - About 26,500 results (how this can co-exist with the above result, no one knows)
"java sucks" -- About 22,800 results
The last time this topic came up, someone posted a link to the short story Manna. I found it well worth the read.
The story explores two vastly different ways of greeting a near-total automation of labour.
Maybe so, but they count as magic items, so zapping a wand of polymorph at your stash could result in a coveted magic lamp.
Not to mention that travel to another star system could be achieved with tremendous breakthroughs in ecology and sociology (self-sustaining ecosystems for long space travel plus a social system that could allow it), or biology, AI and robotics ("seed ship" containing test tube babies and robots smart enough to raise them)
[Citation Needed]
All I can find (and information even on this is patchy) suggests a single man who may have given Belarus uncensored documents.
You'd need to go a long way to prove "openly works with", let alone "is a neo Stalinist front".
But...wouldn't it make more sense to build a case on a strong foundation, so the same tactics can be applied against the next thousand upload sites?
Maybe you're right, and their vendetta is solely against MegaUpload. In that case, they win. But in terms of fighting upload sites or piracy, these tactics might win a battle, but will definitely lose a war.
So why isn't this blogger exposing the real identities of poster who made racist comments about Allen West and Mia Love?
Who?
What we need is a -1 What Is This I Don't Even mod.
No it's not. The meaning of "reintroduction of extinct toad" is orders of magnitude more impressive than "reintroduction of toads extinct in the wild". I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so.
If you put it to the school in those same terms, then it's no wonder they weren't happy.
The "Original Intent" was to determine whiteness? Why not just ask "how white is your skin"? Why accidentally create an intelligence at the same time?
IQ tests have been misused and are a poor measure of a whole host of intelligence types. But that's a far cry from what you're implying.
Maybe Eternal September is finally ending
This is the most hopeful phrase I've read in a long time.
That's fair, but I don't see it happening without a concrete goal to get us there. I'd be happy with plans for a moon/asteroid belt/Mars colony, as long as we're taking the long view and asking how to build a self-sustaining space colony with minimal materials.
The bottom line is, we don't know just how rare intelligent life is in the universe, and I'd hate to see it disappear.
But if an asteroid impact blows most of earth's atmosphere and water into space, and we haven't had practice setting up a self-sustaining system on Mars - what chance do we have on earth?
Exactly. It's like how we prevent rapes by restricting women from wearing revealing clothing. If X causes Y, we must restrict X.
Hmm - maybe you should rephrase the question. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
I disagree with the idea that the Big Bang should be chosen as the "official" reference frame, but I don't want to argue that point. If we assume that the sum of the CMB is "stopped", that fact doesn't really lead to any new knowledge.
If I'm travelling at 0.8c compared to the sun, then I will be slowed down by a factor of 0.6 - when viewed from the sun. This fact doesn't change whether the frame of reference is Earth, the CMB, or anything else.
So given the fact that experiments come out the same regardless of the "official" frame of reference, I really don't see the point of just arbitrarily assigning the CMB this special status - except maybe as some sort of interstellar navigational standard. Certainly not for any scientific reasons.
Yeah - the question itself seems to lend itself to a lot of inconsistencies. For instance, what is a "photon at rest", since a photon is described in the context of changing EM fields, which produces a very definite value (c) as to its velocity.
As you say, maybe the photon does "see" an infinite mass, but because we're considering it to be at rest, it has zero mass (by definition, a photon has zero rest mass), so it doesn't actually experience any gravity?
Or maybe the question itself is nonsense to someone who knows what they're talking about :)