Most experts agree that corn ethanol isn't really useful as an enviromentally friendly fuel, but could there be a use for it in building a buffer into the food production system. Right now farms are heavily subsidized, in part to make sure that there is an oversupply of food incase of drought or other stresses on the food supply.
However, what if instead of subsidizing farms to achieve excess food production we instead burn 10-15% of the food supply as ethanol? If there ever is a serious stress put on the food supply there's now a big buffer built into the system. Of course this additional buffer may not be necessary as there's already a buffer in place with food that's currently used to feed livestock (I don't know how much extra food we get if we start eating all this food ourselves though).
That's the same fallacy that the FOSS zealots are prone to. They say, if you want a feature, or don't like a bug, write it or fix it yourself. Well, not everybody has the knowledge or time to do that.
Same goes for Wikipedia articles. How can you fix an overly esoteric article if you don't understand the subject in the first place (and that's why you came to Wikipedia)? Answer: you can't. Even those who can may not have the time, and those who do have time may not have the ability to write about it coherently.
So for those who write FOSS or Wikipedia articles: cool. Awesome. You contribute to the community. But, please, don't blame inadequacies on those of us who don't/can't contribute. That's weak. Actually with FOSS the comment that "you can write it yourself" is actually quite a valid point. Not because most users can code (because they can't) but because the feature that a lot of non-technical users want, usually a few technical users will want it as well and they'll make the change (if feasible).
Of course in this situation we're dealing with an issue that only really appears to be an issue to the non-technical users so the technical users never have a direct motivation to fix it. However that brings up the second tool of the non-technical user, asking the community, precisely what's happening right now.
Really, why do politicians have a tendancy to play whack-a-mole with technology?
If someone is doing something that is causing them to drive unsafely that should be published, regardless of whether that something is chatting on a cellphone, texting, or talking with a friend, if they are doing those actions unsafely.
If you make whack-a-mole laws then not only do you ignore certain activities until the law catches up, but the activities that are penalized you may punish unjustly. Take talking on a cellphone, it can be dangerous, yet I've done it occationally since it is possible to do it safe.
When I talk on a cellphone while driving I follow several guidelines, 1) there is very little traffic (usually about 20m to the next car), 2) conversations are short and to the point (ie I'm comming to pick you up), 3) I make a conscious decision that the road gets my primary attension, if there's not enough surplus attention left over then I'll simply ignore the phone conversation until I have the spare cycles, if this makes the conversation ackward then I'll mention I'm driving and they'll get the idea.
This isn't to say that these are the only circumstances that one can drive safely with a cellphone, nor that these guidelines always mean you'll be safe, it means that what matters is regardless of whatever activity you're doing you have to make sure you're paying enough attention to the road.
Why can't an illegal document be protected under the DMCA?
Because the illegal document would be illegal because its likeness is already copyrighted by someone else. So the US Mint would be able to issue a takedown, but not the person that made the illegal forgery of the US $13 bill. Well that assumes that the only scenarios where a document is illegal is when that document would also violate copyright. I'm not sure that a $13 bill would be copyrighted by the US mint if it was sufficiently different from normal money (it wouldn't be a very good forgery of course), either way I'm sure there are other possible examples I just want to point out that a document being illegal doesn't necessarily imply the lack of a copyright.
That's why I explicitly stated that the fake ID may not be copyrighted anyways so the DMCA wouldn't apply (same effect if the agency holds the copyright as the person couldn't act on their behalf). The argument I was making was that contrary to the original posters assertion the legality of the document should be irrelevant as to whether it's protected by the DMCA as long as it's under copyright.
However, I'm now thinking of an interesting scenario, what if the takedown notice was from the agency who printed the ID (to avoid bad publicity). Does that agency actually hold the copyright, would the posting of the document be protected under some kind of safe harbour, for instance is whistleblowing protected, would it apply?
In much the same way that I can claim to have invented computers, someone can claim that an illegal document is covered under the DMCA. It is an invalid claim, as no illegal document can be protected in such a manner, but it is a claim none the less. Why can't an illegal document be protected under the DMCA? The DMCA is about copyright and I don't see any reason why an illegal document wouldn't be copyrighted. Now the forged ID may not necessarily be under copyright since it may not be considered an original work but if it is copyrighted than it should be protected by the DMCA (of course the copyright owner probably wouldn't want law enforcement involved but that's another matter).
If you don't like the idea of a federalized ID card,I love how the editors and submitter think that everybody on slashdot should hold the same stance as they do on this issue.
I happen to believe Real ID is a very good idea, and that it would make society better.
We already have national IDs in the form of passports, Social Security cards, etc.
I'm all for cracking down on states to make their IDs more secure and lessen counterfeits. I don't believe our privacy would change markedly than what we have today.
Verifying someone's identity is a lot tougher then just issuing them a card, in fact it could even backfire by giving people a false confidence in the authenticity of documents that are based on faulty information.
To see the drawbacks of real id I'd take a look at http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/05/real _id_action.html/. Schneier knows a lot about these kind of issues and unlike the government he has an excellent track record when it comes to evaluating security systems.
John Edwards is calling for Creative Commons debates also.
Also though it's a bit offtopic I thought it was necessary to add this as well. Sooner or later in this discussion someone is bound to mention something about the RIAA or MPAA. Considering the various cheers that arose here when Jack Valenti died I thought that some people may benefit from Lessig's perspective.
So you're telling me that in Britain / Australia / France / Germany / -- I have no idea where you're from, but where you are from -- nobody votes party lines? I try to follow international elections a lot, and I can't think of anywhere in the world that would fit that description. I'm from Canada and I can say that the US has a political system that is fundamentally different from Canada and most other parlamentary democracies.
One major thing is the US allows people to declare party affiliation when they do their voter registration. I'm afraid I don't know the reasons for this, I thought this had to do with ballot access but after googling around for a bit it seems ballot access is done differently, thus I don't really know what the benefits are (primary access maybe?). Regardless I believe this does a lot to increase partisanship as a majority of the country is now considers themselves on some level affiliated with a specific party. Thus every time you have any kind of political discussion people are suddenly being pigeonholed into the roles of Democrat or Republican. If you asked a Canadian whether they were Liberal, Conservative, NDP, or whatever they'd probably look at you like you were crazy. Only a small minority of Canadians actually consider themselves to be members of a particular party, of course there are lots who always vote for a certain party (often legitimately as their views are consistently most in line with that party) but people don't vote for their party like they do in the US because we don't have a personal party to vote for.
At the national level though it's a much different story. Individual MPs are elected mostly because of the party they belong to, not because of their personal beliefs, thus MPs don't have much of a mandate to exercise personal choice and almost always vote along party lines. When an MP does assert their independence the voters of their riding are often unhappy, declaring that "we voted for an X, not a Y".
I could see something like this having a very chilling effect of free speech.
Think if you've ever complained about the police when talking when a friend, now think if you'd still complaining as loudly if a police officer was within earshot.
This doesn't even have to work, a lot of people walking down the street are still going to feel nervous saying bad things about Big Brother if they feel Big Brother is actually listening.
Quite true, the "by design" part was probably stuck in my head since I've been thinking about DRM so much recently, it didn't occur to me that the title communicated a concept quite different than I was thinking of.
I was trying to communicate that I suspected any online voting solution have to deal with certain security issues that could not be fully resolved.
If I wrote the post again I'd choose a title such as "Fundamentaly Insecure?"
The biggest problem with the diebold machines is the lack of an auditable and voter-verified paper trail. How is it possible to have one with voting online? Either the voters have no way of making sure their vote was counted, or they are given a receipt which opens the door to vote buying and intimidation.
The only thing I can think of was a story here sometime ago which mentioned a design of a ballot which provided a voter verifiable receipt without revealing their vote, but I recall it being quite complicated and I don't know if it would work online.
Is there any way to implement online voting without making it unverifiable or allowing voter intimidation?
I think you are making an unfair comparison. Suppose someone has been doing good genuine research for years. Then it turns out they didn't have the BA they claimed they did when applying to grad school. Who cares? The research is still there, and it's still good -- and that's the main job requirement, right? Whatever the person did 28 years ago is irrelevant. Should this professor sit on the graduate admissions committee? perhaps not. But why shouldn't they run a lab?
Now I should admit that unlike you that I'm not part of academia so I probably don't have as good an understanding as you. However, I have to ask how do you know the research is genuine? A quick examination of researchers who have committed academic fraud on wikipedia shows that once caught a closer examination frequenty reveals a long history of fabrication, all of which was undetected until they were caught. Now even if you could somehow make sure that all their past research was in fact genuine (I don't know how feasible that is) how effectively could they continue since there is now a cloud of doubt around their integrity. How confident would you be of citing a paper they were involved with?
As an academic, I'd be the first to tell you: (high-quality) academic degrees are worth a lot if you are going to do research in that field. They are of little value for "general education" and life experience. Attending a top college is good for your networking and your resume, but otherwise I'd say only go to college if you want the education.
In this case, she was clearly doing the job well. Since we are no longer trying to predict how good she'll be at the job, her lying is irrelevant on that count, and if she had a research position, the story should have ended there (there are many professors with no undergrad or even grad degrees).
Considering the huge scandal that occurs when a researcher is found to have committed academic fraud (sometimes they can escape detection for years) would you really want to be working with a researcher who already has a history of lying for selfish purposes? How much trust would you put in a paper if you have to constantly wonder if the author was tweaking the results.
Practically everything that was said regarding Iraq's WMD prowess was also said by To commit air strikes you need to be really damn certain your info is correct.
To carry out a military campaign and actually invade a country you need to be absolutely certain, you need to know there was no way to avoid that action because the circumstances demanded that an invasion is necessary. Why? Because the cost of war is so insanely high.
They were pretty sure there were weapons there, most people were, so was I. But that wasn't good enough, they had the capability to make absolutely sure the WMDs were there before the invasion. I don't know if it was because they didn't care about the WMDs that much or they were overconfident in the intelligence they did have. But the fact is they didn't do their homework and now a lot of people are paying the price.
I mean realistically, what actual irrational actions have they taken?
Carting british sailors off was one thing that wasn't particularily rational, at any stage of the operation. In the end it gave them some very positive media results but it could have gone very badly very quickly just as easily. It was risky for sure but I think it was a calculated risk. For one I do think the risk of an indicent was fairly low, they specifically targeted the British and knew the British rules of engagement, chances are they were given orders not to open fire, or if the capture did turn into a shootout both sides would probably look for a way to avoid war (a large conflict is in the interests of neither country). As for benefits they wanted to warn the British and Americans from going too close to their waters, and I suspect they accomplished that. The final reason is a fairly familiar one. Ahmadinejad was elected, the Iranian parliament is elected, now they don't have the final say in government and candidates need to be approved to run for office, but from what I can tell the Iranian elections themselves are fair. Thus like any western election Iranian politicians need to watch the polls, and Ahmadinejad isn't particularly popular since the economy isn't doing very well, thus the British hostage show was probably very much designed to help his polling numbers, not the purest of motives but as rational as many western politicians.
As to them trying to obtain a Nuke I really doubt that any of those nukes will be used. First they know if they ever use any of them on Israel the US will push the button as well, and then the US will invade and make sure they kill every member of the regime they can find to set an example. Open Nuclear conflict isn't in Iran's interest anymore than anyone else
I think if someone says they really don't care if someone destroys them, as long as thier ideals are promoted, you have to take them somewhat seriously when they mix those words with nuclear weapons I'm not 100% sure they would use them but I think the likleyhood is honestly grater than 50% because it achieves many long-term goals. I'd put it more at about 15%. At the end of the day I really think the rhetoric is just rhetoric. I find it disturbing that that's the kind of rhetoric that the people want to hear but I doubt that many Iranians actually want a nuclear conflict. As to their long term goals I really don't think it does much for them. The only thing I can think of is that the elimination of Isreal is probably necessary for the Islamic superstate but I think they still have enough other problems (including the Sunni/Shia split) that they realize it's not worth it.
I am ever more sure that if there is a limited exchange between Iran and Israel there will not be any attack from the US or any other country in response. Why would there be when those countries had lready pounded the heck out of each other? In that sense it seems like we wouldn't need to be concerned if you were a total isolationalist, but even then you have to be concerned about the effect on the climate and just sheer human suffering if nothing else. I don't think Iran has that much interest in a direct conflict with Israel, at the end of the day there aren't really many tangible benefits that Iran gains with the elimination of Irsael. In fact I think that the existance of Israel actually causes the rest of the middle east to rally around Iran as a kind of champion, thus Iran has to talk big to keep their respect but taking actual action doesn't really help them.
Um, Russia is a region of high instability?.. =8-) Wow, that's big news! Why haven't I heard about it, living 200 km from its border?:)) Sorry bad wording:)
The point I meant to make was that Russia went through some instability when the USSR disolved, as a result a lot of the Nuclear weapons that the USSR had spread around are no longer properly guarded and could potentially be siezed by a group such as a terrorist organization, admitedly I don't know much about this topic (I think this risk is much more prominent in other former states of the USSR then Russia itself).
If Iran does develop a sizeable Nuclear arsenal then it's very much in the wests interest to stop the Iranian government from collapsing the way the USSR did and leave those Nukes unguarded in a country with a number of powerful terrorist organizations who would be willing to use a Nuke.
All of the governments you listed had fair doses of common sense. They knew that if they were to use said weapons in attack, retaliation would be pretty bad and much of the country would be destroyed. Nucelar weapons for them were for defensive posturing so no-one would try and attack them.
Iran however seems to relish the scenario of massive retaliation and would by the words of the current leader love to be obliterated, because the ideals they are fighting for would live on in the region only without Israel around to bother them any longer.
Now the people of Iran are quite different than the leader, they are rational and fine people indeed. But it only takes a handful of guys to press that magic button. Attacking them is not the right solution (and I don't really see anyone making moves to do so). But letting them get nuclear weapons is not the right answer either. How you solve those contradctory needs I have no idea. I'm not very comfortable with the idea of Iran getting nuclear weapons but I don't really think that the leadership is as nearly as unpredictable and irrational as the west makes them out to be.
I mean realistically, what actual irrational actions have they taken? Rhetoric doesn't count, lots of governments do that, especially ones under threat of attack. As for actual actions all I can think of is trying to cause instability in Iraq, but from the perspective of the Iranian government that is a completely logical objective. First the US has made no secret of its desire to invade Iran and overthrow the government, by messing up Iraq they can both send a message that the US shouldn't mess with them and make it a lot harder for the Americans to justify an invasion of Iran. Second a strong democratic Iraqi government backed by the US isn't a good neighbour to Iran, the Americans hate Iran and Iran really wants to cement itself as the boss of the Middle East, Iraq included. Besides the Iranian government is secure enough, and has enough control over the different groups that they're not very worried about the instability spilling outside of Iraq.
As to them trying to obtain a Nuke I really doubt that any of those nukes will be used. First they know if they ever use any of them on Israel the US will push the button as well, and then the US will invade and make sure they kill every member of the regime they can find to set an example. Open Nuclear conflict isn't in Iran's interest anymore than anyone else.
As to giving the Nukes to a terrorist group I can't imagine the Iranians trusting the terrorists enough to give them a Nuke as the terrorists have their own objectives and might decide to use it on the wrong target. Also, although I don't know if this is true, I believe you can tell from which Nuclear plant the uranium used in a nuclear bomb was obtained from, in this case the Nuke would be directly traceable back to Iran and they could be assured of a counterattack.
Either way Iran has very good motives to want a Nuke, first to avoid direct invasion. Second, the only way Nukes do get in a situation where terrorists can get a hold of them is in a region of high instability (ie Russia). Iran is making sure that the Americans don't try to destabalize the government through passive means, otherwise they might lose control of the Nukes and they'll end up with terrorists. None of these reasons involve Iran using these nukes.
There's nothing inherent in the system that says the security questions should only be presented when the correct password has been supplied. A safer procedure may be to present the security questions after three failed(either because of the password, or because of the typing profile) logins with the same password. If they failed because of the typing profile, answering the security questions correctly grants you access. If they failed because of the password, you will be denied access whether or not you answer the security questions correctly. That's a good point. The phrasing of the article made me think that the question only came up after correct passwords with a bad cadence. But if it works as you suggest and it always gives a security question after failed attempts, then you still get the security of the passphrase without letting the attacker know they have the correct password.
Of course as you mention there's still the issue of the security of the passphrase, my guess is it won't be very complex since it will almost never be used and people will have trouble remembering anything complex/obscure when they do need to use it (thus the effective security may be reduced to an effective single password afterall).
"You're sleepy, right. They have a few little measures to catch that. If after a couple of goes it seems you're not typing the way it expects you to type, it will ask some additional security questions."
Ahh, so really all they've really done is increased the number of passwords an attacker has to try by a factor of 3 or so. Then you hit the question and you know you have the right password. At that point you can either solve the security questions (probably not as nearly as tough as the password, especially since no one expects it to be used) or they keep making occational tries at logging in with the correct password until you find their cadence (probably not that hard).
Note that I doubt that an attacker getting the password then bailing when they hit the question will raise any red flags, chances are there will be so many false positives that no one will bother to follow up.
Sorry but I think you're the one who is wrong. In crimes of passion the person is rarely thinking "I want to kill that person" for any extended period (murder may not even be their intention) just take a look at the Sara Easton case as an example, the accused wasn't even trying to hit anybody, he was only trying to scare the group. The citation of a single outlier case does not validate your argument. I wasn't using it as evidence, I was using it as an example (which is a valid usage). My argument is that there are many situations where a gun murder occurs as an escalation of a dispute, and that had a gun not been present the escalation would not have been fatal. The Sara Easton case served as an example to illustrate the kind of accidental murder I was talking about, it was never intended as evidence and I tried to phrase it so someone would not think it was inteded as evidence but rather a case to give the argument context.
Back in my HS days I found a VCR in a locker. The VCR had been stolen from a classroom. I reported it to the administration office. The VP promptly accused me of getting "cold feet" about the theft and called the cops on me, even though I was in class when the supposed theft occurred two days prior (there was an exam, thus I had a reasonable alibi). None of my explanations mattered, nor apparently did the B&E that I committed in opening the locker. She was fixated that I (or my buddy who was with me) had stolen the VCR. Cops were called and we were separated and interviewed by the sheriff. I'm curious, did you see the VCR and then break into the locker, or did you break into the locker and then find the VCR? I'm just wondering because if you were someone known for breaking into things (like lockers) she would have been somewhat justified in her suspicion of you, on the other hand if you broke into the locker to retrieve the classrooms VCR (which wouldn't be the wisest course of action but is understandable) then her suspicion loses a lot of its justification.
pretty much any gun murder described as a "crime of passion" wouldn't have happened if the murderer hadn't had ready, legal access to a gun.
That is a ridiculous statement with no supporting evidence. If anything, those are the murders that are *least* likely to be affected by gun control, as only one or two people are murdered and it is relatively easy to kill one or two people if they aren't expecting it by a variety of means. If you could completely remove guns from society (obviously impossible), the crimes most likely to be stopped are large-scale killings like the VT incident and things like drive-by shootings.
Sorry but I think you're the one who is wrong. In crimes of passion the person is rarely thinking "I want to kill that person" for any extended period (murder may not even be their intention) just take a look at the Sara Easton case as an example, the accused wasn't even trying to hit anybody, he was only trying to scare the group. The fact is you can do a LOT more damage in a passionate moment with a gun than a fist, baseball bat, or even a knife. Thus crimes of passion will go down as the number of guns is decreased (I don't know by how much, would like to see how many murders do occur with registered guns to get an idea).
Now one type of murder that probably won't go down much would be premeditated murder. As you said it's pretty easy to kill someone if they aren't expecting it, it's a bit tougher without a gun but a dedicated individual will still do it.
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Most experts agree that corn ethanol isn't really useful as an enviromentally friendly fuel, but could there be a use for it in building a buffer into the food production system. Right now farms are heavily subsidized, in part to make sure that there is an oversupply of food incase of drought or other stresses on the food supply.
However, what if instead of subsidizing farms to achieve excess food production we instead burn 10-15% of the food supply as ethanol? If there ever is a serious stress put on the food supply there's now a big buffer built into the system. Of course this additional buffer may not be necessary as there's already a buffer in place with food that's currently used to feed livestock (I don't know how much extra food we get if we start eating all this food ourselves though).
Is there any legal precendent for suing users of a product for patent infringement as opposed to the creators?
I know SCO kept claiming they were going to but they never actually did.
Same goes for Wikipedia articles. How can you fix an overly esoteric article if you don't understand the subject in the first place (and that's why you came to Wikipedia)? Answer: you can't. Even those who can may not have the time, and those who do have time may not have the ability to write about it coherently.
So for those who write FOSS or Wikipedia articles: cool. Awesome. You contribute to the community. But, please, don't blame inadequacies on those of us who don't/can't contribute. That's weak. Actually with FOSS the comment that "you can write it yourself" is actually quite a valid point. Not because most users can code (because they can't) but because the feature that a lot of non-technical users want, usually a few technical users will want it as well and they'll make the change (if feasible).
Of course in this situation we're dealing with an issue that only really appears to be an issue to the non-technical users so the technical users never have a direct motivation to fix it. However that brings up the second tool of the non-technical user, asking the community, precisely what's happening right now.
Really, why do politicians have a tendancy to play whack-a-mole with technology?
If someone is doing something that is causing them to drive unsafely that should be published, regardless of whether that something is chatting on a cellphone, texting, or talking with a friend, if they are doing those actions unsafely.
If you make whack-a-mole laws then not only do you ignore certain activities until the law catches up, but the activities that are penalized you may punish unjustly. Take talking on a cellphone, it can be dangerous, yet I've done it occationally since it is possible to do it safe.
When I talk on a cellphone while driving I follow several guidelines, 1) there is very little traffic (usually about 20m to the next car), 2) conversations are short and to the point (ie I'm comming to pick you up), 3) I make a conscious decision that the road gets my primary attension, if there's not enough surplus attention left over then I'll simply ignore the phone conversation until I have the spare cycles, if this makes the conversation ackward then I'll mention I'm driving and they'll get the idea.
This isn't to say that these are the only circumstances that one can drive safely with a cellphone, nor that these guidelines always mean you'll be safe, it means that what matters is regardless of whatever activity you're doing you have to make sure you're paying enough attention to the road.
Because the illegal document would be illegal because its likeness is already copyrighted by someone else. So the US Mint would be able to issue a takedown, but not the person that made the illegal forgery of the US $13 bill. Well that assumes that the only scenarios where a document is illegal is when that document would also violate copyright. I'm not sure that a $13 bill would be copyrighted by the US mint if it was sufficiently different from normal money (it wouldn't be a very good forgery of course), either way I'm sure there are other possible examples I just want to point out that a document being illegal doesn't necessarily imply the lack of a copyright.
That's why I explicitly stated that the fake ID may not be copyrighted anyways so the DMCA wouldn't apply (same effect if the agency holds the copyright as the person couldn't act on their behalf). The argument I was making was that contrary to the original posters assertion the legality of the document should be irrelevant as to whether it's protected by the DMCA as long as it's under copyright.
However, I'm now thinking of an interesting scenario, what if the takedown notice was from the agency who printed the ID (to avoid bad publicity). Does that agency actually hold the copyright, would the posting of the document be protected under some kind of safe harbour, for instance is whistleblowing protected, would it apply?
I happen to believe Real ID is a very good idea, and that it would make society better.
We already have national IDs in the form of passports, Social Security cards, etc.
I'm all for cracking down on states to make their IDs more secure and lessen counterfeits. I don't believe our privacy would change markedly than what we have today.
Verifying someone's identity is a lot tougher then just issuing them a card, in fact it could even backfire by giving people a false confidence in the authenticity of documents that are based on faulty information.To see the drawbacks of real id I'd take a look at http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/05/rea
John Edwards is calling for Creative Commons debates also.
Also though it's a bit offtopic I thought it was necessary to add this as well. Sooner or later in this discussion someone is bound to mention something about the RIAA or MPAA. Considering the various cheers that arose here when Jack Valenti died I thought that some people may benefit from Lessig's perspective.
One major thing is the US allows people to declare party affiliation when they do their voter registration. I'm afraid I don't know the reasons for this, I thought this had to do with ballot access but after googling around for a bit it seems ballot access is done differently, thus I don't really know what the benefits are (primary access maybe?). Regardless I believe this does a lot to increase partisanship as a majority of the country is now considers themselves on some level affiliated with a specific party. Thus every time you have any kind of political discussion people are suddenly being pigeonholed into the roles of Democrat or Republican. If you asked a Canadian whether they were Liberal, Conservative, NDP, or whatever they'd probably look at you like you were crazy. Only a small minority of Canadians actually consider themselves to be members of a particular party, of course there are lots who always vote for a certain party (often legitimately as their views are consistently most in line with that party) but people don't vote for their party like they do in the US because we don't have a personal party to vote for.
At the national level though it's a much different story. Individual MPs are elected mostly because of the party they belong to, not because of their personal beliefs, thus MPs don't have much of a mandate to exercise personal choice and almost always vote along party lines. When an MP does assert their independence the voters of their riding are often unhappy, declaring that "we voted for an X, not a Y".
I could see something like this having a very chilling effect of free speech.
Think if you've ever complained about the police when talking when a friend, now think if you'd still complaining as loudly if a police officer was within earshot.
This doesn't even have to work, a lot of people walking down the street are still going to feel nervous saying bad things about Big Brother if they feel Big Brother is actually listening.
Quite true, the "by design" part was probably stuck in my head since I've been thinking about DRM so much recently, it didn't occur to me that the title communicated a concept quite different than I was thinking of.
I was trying to communicate that I suspected any online voting solution have to deal with certain security issues that could not be fully resolved.
If I wrote the post again I'd choose a title such as "Fundamentaly Insecure?"
The biggest problem with the diebold machines is the lack of an auditable and voter-verified paper trail. How is it possible to have one with voting online? Either the voters have no way of making sure their vote was counted, or they are given a receipt which opens the door to vote buying and intimidation.
The only thing I can think of was a story here sometime ago which mentioned a design of a ballot which provided a voter verifiable receipt without revealing their vote, but I recall it being quite complicated and I don't know if it would work online.
Is there any way to implement online voting without making it unverifiable or allowing voter intimidation?
I think you are making an unfair comparison. Suppose someone has been doing good genuine research for years. Then it turns out they didn't have the BA they claimed they did when applying to grad school. Who cares? The research is still there, and it's still good -- and that's the main job requirement, right? Whatever the person did 28 years ago is irrelevant. Should this professor sit on the graduate admissions committee? perhaps not. But why shouldn't they run a lab?
Now I should admit that unlike you that I'm not part of academia so I probably don't have as good an understanding as you. However, I have to ask how do you know the research is genuine? A quick examination of researchers who have committed academic fraud on wikipedia shows that once caught a closer examination frequenty reveals a long history of fabrication, all of which was undetected until they were caught. Now even if you could somehow make sure that all their past research was in fact genuine (I don't know how feasible that is) how effectively could they continue since there is now a cloud of doubt around their integrity. How confident would you be of citing a paper they were involved with?As an academic, I'd be the first to tell you: (high-quality) academic degrees are worth a lot if you are going to do research in that field. They are of little value for "general education" and life experience. Attending a top college is good for your networking and your resume, but otherwise I'd say only go to college if you want the education.
In this case, she was clearly doing the job well. Since we are no longer trying to predict how good she'll be at the job, her lying is irrelevant on that count, and if she had a research position, the story should have ended there (there are many professors with no undergrad or even grad degrees).
Considering the huge scandal that occurs when a researcher is found to have committed academic fraud (sometimes they can escape detection for years) would you really want to be working with a researcher who already has a history of lying for selfish purposes? How much trust would you put in a paper if you have to constantly wonder if the author was tweaking the results.To carry out a military campaign and actually invade a country you need to be absolutely certain, you need to know there was no way to avoid that action because the circumstances demanded that an invasion is necessary. Why? Because the cost of war is so insanely high.
They were pretty sure there were weapons there, most people were, so was I. But that wasn't good enough, they had the capability to make absolutely sure the WMDs were there before the invasion. I don't know if it was because they didn't care about the WMDs that much or they were overconfident in the intelligence they did have. But the fact is they didn't do their homework and now a lot of people are paying the price.
First they came for my fats, and I said nothing. Then they came for my carbs, and I said nothing. Then they came for my sugars, and I said nothing.
But NOT MY FUCKING CHOCOLATE!
(insert Star Spangled Banner here)
One nation. One struggle. One destiny.
I had a dream! A chocolatey dream! Would you accept:
A divided nation. Numerous struggles. Conflicting destinies.
And a chocolatey-flavored dream?
Carting british sailors off was one thing that wasn't particularily rational, at any stage of the operation. In the end it gave them some very positive media results but it could have gone very badly very quickly just as easily. It was risky for sure but I think it was a calculated risk. For one I do think the risk of an indicent was fairly low, they specifically targeted the British and knew the British rules of engagement, chances are they were given orders not to open fire, or if the capture did turn into a shootout both sides would probably look for a way to avoid war (a large conflict is in the interests of neither country). As for benefits they wanted to warn the British and Americans from going too close to their waters, and I suspect they accomplished that. The final reason is a fairly familiar one. Ahmadinejad was elected, the Iranian parliament is elected, now they don't have the final say in government and candidates need to be approved to run for office, but from what I can tell the Iranian elections themselves are fair. Thus like any western election Iranian politicians need to watch the polls, and Ahmadinejad isn't particularly popular since the economy isn't doing very well, thus the British hostage show was probably very much designed to help his polling numbers, not the purest of motives but as rational as many western politicians. As to them trying to obtain a Nuke I really doubt that any of those nukes will be used. First they know if they ever use any of them on Israel the US will push the button as well, and then the US will invade and make sure they kill every member of the regime they can find to set an example. Open Nuclear conflict isn't in Iran's interest anymore than anyone else
I think if someone says they really don't care if someone destroys them, as long as thier ideals are promoted, you have to take them somewhat seriously when they mix those words with nuclear weapons I'm not 100% sure they would use them but I think the likleyhood is honestly grater than 50% because it achieves many long-term goals. I'd put it more at about 15%. At the end of the day I really think the rhetoric is just rhetoric. I find it disturbing that that's the kind of rhetoric that the people want to hear but I doubt that many Iranians actually want a nuclear conflict. As to their long term goals I really don't think it does much for them. The only thing I can think of is that the elimination of Isreal is probably necessary for the Islamic superstate but I think they still have enough other problems (including the Sunni/Shia split) that they realize it's not worth it. I am ever more sure that if there is a limited exchange between Iran and Israel there will not be any attack from the US or any other country in response. Why would there be when those countries had lready pounded the heck out of each other? In that sense it seems like we wouldn't need to be concerned if you were a total isolationalist, but even then you have to be concerned about the effect on the climate and just sheer human suffering if nothing else. I don't think Iran has that much interest in a direct conflict with Israel, at the end of the day there aren't really many tangible benefits that Iran gains with the elimination of Irsael. In fact I think that the existance of Israel actually causes the rest of the middle east to rally around Iran as a kind of champion, thus Iran has to talk big to keep their respect but taking actual action doesn't really help them.
The point I meant to make was that Russia went through some instability when the USSR disolved, as a result a lot of the Nuclear weapons that the USSR had spread around are no longer properly guarded and could potentially be siezed by a group such as a terrorist organization, admitedly I don't know much about this topic (I think this risk is much more prominent in other former states of the USSR then Russia itself).
If Iran does develop a sizeable Nuclear arsenal then it's very much in the wests interest to stop the Iranian government from collapsing the way the USSR did and leave those Nukes unguarded in a country with a number of powerful terrorist organizations who would be willing to use a Nuke.
Iran however seems to relish the scenario of massive retaliation and would by the words of the current leader love to be obliterated, because the ideals they are fighting for would live on in the region only without Israel around to bother them any longer.
Now the people of Iran are quite different than the leader, they are rational and fine people indeed. But it only takes a handful of guys to press that magic button. Attacking them is not the right solution (and I don't really see anyone making moves to do so). But letting them get nuclear weapons is not the right answer either. How you solve those contradctory needs I have no idea. I'm not very comfortable with the idea of Iran getting nuclear weapons but I don't really think that the leadership is as nearly as unpredictable and irrational as the west makes them out to be.
I mean realistically, what actual irrational actions have they taken? Rhetoric doesn't count, lots of governments do that, especially ones under threat of attack. As for actual actions all I can think of is trying to cause instability in Iraq, but from the perspective of the Iranian government that is a completely logical objective. First the US has made no secret of its desire to invade Iran and overthrow the government, by messing up Iraq they can both send a message that the US shouldn't mess with them and make it a lot harder for the Americans to justify an invasion of Iran. Second a strong democratic Iraqi government backed by the US isn't a good neighbour to Iran, the Americans hate Iran and Iran really wants to cement itself as the boss of the Middle East, Iraq included. Besides the Iranian government is secure enough, and has enough control over the different groups that they're not very worried about the instability spilling outside of Iraq.
As to them trying to obtain a Nuke I really doubt that any of those nukes will be used. First they know if they ever use any of them on Israel the US will push the button as well, and then the US will invade and make sure they kill every member of the regime they can find to set an example. Open Nuclear conflict isn't in Iran's interest anymore than anyone else.
As to giving the Nukes to a terrorist group I can't imagine the Iranians trusting the terrorists enough to give them a Nuke as the terrorists have their own objectives and might decide to use it on the wrong target. Also, although I don't know if this is true, I believe you can tell from which Nuclear plant the uranium used in a nuclear bomb was obtained from, in this case the Nuke would be directly traceable back to Iran and they could be assured of a counterattack.
Either way Iran has very good motives to want a Nuke, first to avoid direct invasion. Second, the only way Nukes do get in a situation where terrorists can get a hold of them is in a region of high instability (ie Russia). Iran is making sure that the Americans don't try to destabalize the government through passive means, otherwise they might lose control of the Nukes and they'll end up with terrorists. None of these reasons involve Iran using these nukes.
Of course as you mention there's still the issue of the security of the passphrase, my guess is it won't be very complex since it will almost never be used and people will have trouble remembering anything complex/obscure when they do need to use it (thus the effective security may be reduced to an effective single password afterall).
From the article:
"You're sleepy, right. They have a few little measures to catch that. If after a couple of goes it seems you're not typing the way it expects you to type, it will ask some additional security questions."
Ahh, so really all they've really done is increased the number of passwords an attacker has to try by a factor of 3 or so. Then you hit the question and you know you have the right password. At that point you can either solve the security questions (probably not as nearly as tough as the password, especially since no one expects it to be used) or they keep making occational tries at logging in with the correct password until you find their cadence (probably not that hard).
Note that I doubt that an attacker getting the password then bailing when they hit the question will raise any red flags, chances are there will be so many false positives that no one will bother to follow up.
That is a ridiculous statement with no supporting evidence. If anything, those are the murders that are *least* likely to be affected by gun control, as only one or two people are murdered and it is relatively easy to kill one or two people if they aren't expecting it by a variety of means. If you could completely remove guns from society (obviously impossible), the crimes most likely to be stopped are large-scale killings like the VT incident and things like drive-by shootings.
Sorry but I think you're the one who is wrong. In crimes of passion the person is rarely thinking "I want to kill that person" for any extended period (murder may not even be their intention) just take a look at the Sara Easton case as an example, the accused wasn't even trying to hit anybody, he was only trying to scare the group. The fact is you can do a LOT more damage in a passionate moment with a gun than a fist, baseball bat, or even a knife. Thus crimes of passion will go down as the number of guns is decreased (I don't know by how much, would like to see how many murders do occur with registered guns to get an idea).Now one type of murder that probably won't go down much would be premeditated murder. As you said it's pretty easy to kill someone if they aren't expecting it, it's a bit tougher without a gun but a dedicated individual will still do it.