If I read correctly, Obama voted for the amendment that would let people hold the telcos accountable. Clinton did not vote, and McCain voted to let the telcos get away scot-free.
So no, I do not support wiretapping without a warrant.
If you had one house in the neighbourhood that could get a fibre connection, you could hook up a router, put wireless access points in the various houses, and route the traffic that way.
Or do it wired, o'course, but that might be a bit more complicated, and probably really would only be practical for an apartment building.
Well, start small, anyway. The bank can afford to make itself secure, but if every computer in the neighbourhood is sending out Russian viagra ads, your bandwidth will suffer--so doing some basic cleaning and firewalling will benefit you bandwidthwise.
Hell, if you're feeling ambitious, you could set up some kind of neighbourhood LAN and get folks to chip in towards a big fat pipe, if you can prove they'll have a safer connection...;-p
Come to think of it...does anyone know of any successful examples of a "co-op" pseudo-ISP like that that already exists?
Kinda leads to interesting thoughts...perhaps it may behoove certain of us to act as "night watchmen" for our various neighbourhoods, in the interest of keeping that sort of thing away from our systems.
I know I'm probably going to have to make another scan of my landlady's computer...she falls for half the stuff that comes through, even after my lectures on "DON'T CLICK IT":-/
They're not likely to suffer debilitating lawsuits, accusations to their employers and relatives of religious bigotry (given that the Church of Scientology tends to isolate its members from non-Scientologist family) or, frankly, any harm at all for taking their action.
If you disagree with the anonymity of Anonymous, you're more than welcome to do so. This doesn't mean that their message is any less true, though.
I would note further that Anonymous may be, in this case, a real-life example of a Stand-alone complex--a movement that has no structure, no leaders, but unites under a common face, name, and cause. As such, the identities of the individual members is, in the end, irrelevant--much like a corporation, the cause exists as an entity unto itself.
The assertions of Anonymous are simple: that the Church of Scientology is harmful to its members (giving specific instances of those who have been harmed or killed by the Church); that these instances should be investigated; and that it should not have tax exemption.
And while none of the public means that have been used are "illegal" per se, many are extralegal--the filing of lawsuits, et al. Doing some research into, for instance, the testimonies of ex-scientologists will shed more than enough light on these things.
The people who accuse the Church of Scientology of all these things are not any particular age. And while truth is a defense against libel, it is not a defense against having to spend years of your time and thousands of dollars in legal fees defending yourself against lawsuits.
I would question, though, why it is that you're defending them so carefully--it's very rare to find someone online defending scientology who is not themselves a member.
As I said, no imagination is necessary. It's all been documented.
Standard tactics are to harass the person by picketing their house and calling them a 'religious bigot'.
Further, contact will frequently be made with the person's employer and any relatives, emphasizing the 'religious bigot' angle and any other damaging information gathered.
Lawsuits are filed to harass the person--whether or not they have any merit is immaterial, as the aim is to waste the person's time and money.
Xenu.net has documentation on this, for a start, and other repositories of similar records can be found in various places on the internet; I seem to recall that there are several.torrents of documentation archives out there which provide records of all this.
And this movement is taking elementary precaution against the known tactics of the Church of Scientology: to attack, by any means necessary, anyone who brings attention to their shady past.
I would note that Anonymous is petitioning the government, in this case, to remove CoS's tax exemption and launch investigations into its more shady practices--and has carried out its protests remarkably peaceably; there were no arrests of any members of Anonymous, as far as I know, nor, frankly, was there any action that would require police action.
There is no hate and no shame in speaking truth, regardless of who you are--your argument should stand alone whether you are named or anonymous, if it is a good argument.
Do you debate the assertions of Anonymous? Or are you merely sowing FUD?
True, but there is one major difference between the confessional and an auditing session:
The regulations of the Catholic church are very strict that what is said in the confessional -stays- in the confessional under all circumstances (except for a -very- restricted few).
The Church of Scientology -says- that what is said stays confidential, but routinely uses any information obtained during an audit as either a method of coercing the auditee to take more auditing sessions, to refrain from leaving the Church of Scientology, or to attack the ex-Scientologist when they have left with blackmail, or ruining their reputation in the community.
This has been documented by nearly every ex-scientologist--sometimes, all three instances.
It is a tenet of the Church of Scientology (the organization; I make no judgments about the beliefs of individual members) that any "SP"--that is, a 'suppressive person', or in more plain language, anybody who criticizes the church--is to be harassed, sued into oblivion, and otherwise removed as a threat by any means necessary.
Though the CoS claims that it revoked its official "fair game" doctrine that specifically endorsed these tactics in 1968, there have been a number of scientology defectors who have confirmed that they were instructed to carry out similar exercises against those whom the CoS has declared to be "SP".
This is, by the way, one of the reasons why Anonymous has been careful to conceal its members' identities. During the protest, the Scientologists are known to have videoed the protests; and taken special effort to photograph any members of Anonymous who were not wearing a mask, any cars that members of Anonymous entered, and in some cases, cars that stopped and received literature that Anonymous was handing out. It does not take any imagination at all to determine what the CoS is likely to do with this information.
Interestingly, it's not the beliefs of Scientology that were being protested--if you read through some of the more recent Anonymous releases, you'll note that they emphasize that it's the organization that calls itself the Church of Scientology that's being protested, on account of its practices.
Anonymous has explicitly noted that the "Free Zone"--that is, the Scientologists outside the organization--are just fine and dandy.
O'course, the "Free Zone" doesn't charge for its teaching...
But I don't think the antagonism against psychiatry is what you think it is--I think it's more a control structure (given that the auditing, in essence, imparts a codependent relationship between the auditee and the auditor (and by extension, the CoS)). Also worth noting is that the founder, Mr. Hubbard, had a very distinct antipathy towards the profession, and which created certain aspects of Scientology specifically to counter standard psychiatric practice.
I would note that, while not a member per se of Anonymous, I do think that their efforts against Scientology are a good thing, and were carried out remarkably peacefully and with remarkably good organization.
(I've also heard there's more planned for 3/15--beware the Ides of March!)
Or is the biometric data stored in some central database? One must consider the weak points of this particular system, especially as far as the 'frequent traveller' system is concerned. If the scanner just checks the passport against the list of "OK" travelers, that's going to be easy enough to defeat; if it asks for fingerprints and facial features, that may be harder, but still quite possible to defeat with a little preparation time and some suitable research.
Of course, the human element on the manual checks will likely be the easiest to defeat, as it usually is.
Perhaps "gives an opportunity for people with such inclinations to learn more" I suppose...but really, you may as well say that public libraries, with their chemistry and physics books, their copies of the communist manifesto and other 'inflammatory' tracts, create bomb-firing terrorists.
I'd call it 'differently vulnerable' rather than 'more vulnerable'--all things come with inherent risks, and the risks of any particular action must be weighed against the rewards thereof.
Encryption is necessary for many businesses, and if such attacks are truly a worry, they should be addressed in the same manner as any other risk.
Pity that the real legal system uses more of a "microsoft" development cycle instead--write something low quality, throw it past a few friends, and then make the public pay for it.
Those of us who want to continue using P2P without having to jump through all sorts of hoops.
And I wouldn't want the RIAA to endorse using it...but I would, for instance, want Sun or IBM or any of the various game manufacturers to distribute their various products on a P2P model.
Actually, minor non-RIAA studios could do well to distribute P2Pwise...the Radiohead experiment has shown that such a thing -can- be popular; perhaps distributing a torrent with the album art and a little nag-document (go HERE to pay us so we can keep doing this!) via P2P channels would work well to circumvent most of the primary 'objections'
I could not afford music in college. I had no video game systems, and ran Linux because I could not afford any commercial software--not even the 'student version'
Those students I knew who could afford those things usually did not have much impetus to pirate music.
You're railing against a strawman, Anonycoward, and that's not good debating form.
We need to find a way to make P2P distribution models legitimately profitable for the corporations that lobby in Washington for these asinine laws. I was under the impression that the Warcraft folks already had some kind of a P2P model going for distributing their patches and suchlike--perhaps other companies could be induced to do the same?
Elsewise, it might become very popular and profitable to set up some kind of P2P-friendly VPN service, with endpoints just outside the DMZ of various college networks...
Slashdot Mirror
If I read correctly, Obama voted for the amendment that would let people hold the telcos accountable. Clinton did not vote, and McCain voted to let the telcos get away scot-free.
So no, I do not support wiretapping without a warrant.
If you had one house in the neighbourhood that could get a fibre connection, you could hook up a router, put wireless access points in the various houses, and route the traffic that way.
Or do it wired, o'course, but that might be a bit more complicated, and probably really would only be practical for an apartment building.
Well, I guess I have to support Obama. Clinton doesn't have the stones, and McCain's actively antithetical to a free society.
Where's the list, so I can see if my congresscritters were associated with this debacle?
And here I was thinking it'd be the next vaporware, if Duke Nukem actually came out this year.
Well, start small, anyway. The bank can afford to make itself secure, but if every computer in the neighbourhood is sending out Russian viagra ads, your bandwidth will suffer--so doing some basic cleaning and firewalling will benefit you bandwidthwise.
;-p
Hell, if you're feeling ambitious, you could set up some kind of neighbourhood LAN and get folks to chip in towards a big fat pipe, if you can prove they'll have a safer connection...
Come to think of it...does anyone know of any successful examples of a "co-op" pseudo-ISP like that that already exists?
Kinda leads to interesting thoughts...perhaps it may behoove certain of us to act as "night watchmen" for our various neighbourhoods, in the interest of keeping that sort of thing away from our systems.
:-/
I know I'm probably going to have to make another scan of my landlady's computer...she falls for half the stuff that comes through, even after my lectures on "DON'T CLICK IT"
The folks over here keep track of that sort of thing. You may want to speak with them.
Do they need to?
They're not likely to suffer debilitating lawsuits, accusations to their employers and relatives of religious bigotry (given that the Church of Scientology tends to isolate its members from non-Scientologist family) or, frankly, any harm at all for taking their action.
If you disagree with the anonymity of Anonymous, you're more than welcome to do so. This doesn't mean that their message is any less true, though.
I would note further that Anonymous may be, in this case, a real-life example of a Stand-alone complex--a movement that has no structure, no leaders, but unites under a common face, name, and cause. As such, the identities of the individual members is, in the end, irrelevant--much like a corporation, the cause exists as an entity unto itself.
The assertions of Anonymous are simple: that the Church of Scientology is harmful to its members (giving specific instances of those who have been harmed or killed by the Church); that these instances should be investigated; and that it should not have tax exemption.
And while none of the public means that have been used are "illegal" per se, many are extralegal--the filing of lawsuits, et al. Doing some research into, for instance, the testimonies of ex-scientologists will shed more than enough light on these things.
The people who accuse the Church of Scientology of all these things are not any particular age. And while truth is a defense against libel, it is not a defense against having to spend years of your time and thousands of dollars in legal fees defending yourself against lawsuits.
I would question, though, why it is that you're defending them so carefully--it's very rare to find someone online defending scientology who is not themselves a member.
As I said, no imagination is necessary. It's all been documented.
.torrents of documentation archives out there which provide records of all this.
Standard tactics are to harass the person by picketing their house and calling them a 'religious bigot'.
Further, contact will frequently be made with the person's employer and any relatives, emphasizing the 'religious bigot' angle and any other damaging information gathered.
Lawsuits are filed to harass the person--whether or not they have any merit is immaterial, as the aim is to waste the person's time and money.
Xenu.net has documentation on this, for a start, and other repositories of similar records can be found in various places on the internet; I seem to recall that there are several
No need for imagination. The truth is bad enough.
And this movement is taking elementary precaution against the known tactics of the Church of Scientology: to attack, by any means necessary, anyone who brings attention to their shady past.
I would note that Anonymous is petitioning the government, in this case, to remove CoS's tax exemption and launch investigations into its more shady practices--and has carried out its protests remarkably peaceably; there were no arrests of any members of Anonymous, as far as I know, nor, frankly, was there any action that would require police action.
There is no hate and no shame in speaking truth, regardless of who you are--your argument should stand alone whether you are named or anonymous, if it is a good argument.
Do you debate the assertions of Anonymous? Or are you merely sowing FUD?
The civil rights movement marched as well. Were their protests 'vigilante justice'?
Is a public airing of the truth a hate crime?
What are -your- crimes?
True, but there is one major difference between the confessional and an auditing session:
The regulations of the Catholic church are very strict that what is said in the confessional -stays- in the confessional under all circumstances (except for a -very- restricted few).
The Church of Scientology -says- that what is said stays confidential, but routinely uses any information obtained during an audit as either a method of coercing the auditee to take more auditing sessions, to refrain from leaving the Church of Scientology, or to attack the ex-Scientologist when they have left with blackmail, or ruining their reputation in the community.
This has been documented by nearly every ex-scientologist--sometimes, all three instances.
It is a tenet of the Church of Scientology (the organization; I make no judgments about the beliefs of individual members) that any "SP"--that is, a 'suppressive person', or in more plain language, anybody who criticizes the church--is to be harassed, sued into oblivion, and otherwise removed as a threat by any means necessary.
Though the CoS claims that it revoked its official "fair game" doctrine that specifically endorsed these tactics in 1968, there have been a number of scientology defectors who have confirmed that they were instructed to carry out similar exercises against those whom the CoS has declared to be "SP".
This is, by the way, one of the reasons why Anonymous has been careful to conceal its members' identities. During the protest, the Scientologists are known to have videoed the protests; and taken special effort to photograph any members of Anonymous who were not wearing a mask, any cars that members of Anonymous entered, and in some cases, cars that stopped and received literature that Anonymous was handing out. It does not take any imagination at all to determine what the CoS is likely to do with this information.
Interestingly, it's not the beliefs of Scientology that were being protested--if you read through some of the more recent Anonymous releases, you'll note that they emphasize that it's the organization that calls itself the Church of Scientology that's being protested, on account of its practices.
Anonymous has explicitly noted that the "Free Zone"--that is, the Scientologists outside the organization--are just fine and dandy.
O'course, the "Free Zone" doesn't charge for its teaching...
But I don't think the antagonism against psychiatry is what you think it is--I think it's more a control structure (given that the auditing, in essence, imparts a codependent relationship between the auditee and the auditor (and by extension, the CoS)). Also worth noting is that the founder, Mr. Hubbard, had a very distinct antipathy towards the profession, and which created certain aspects of Scientology specifically to counter standard psychiatric practice.
I would note that, while not a member per se of Anonymous, I do think that their efforts against Scientology are a good thing, and were carried out remarkably peacefully and with remarkably good organization.
(I've also heard there's more planned for 3/15--beware the Ides of March!)
Or is the biometric data stored in some central database? One must consider the weak points of this particular system, especially as far as the 'frequent traveller' system is concerned. If the scanner just checks the passport against the list of "OK" travelers, that's going to be easy enough to defeat; if it asks for fingerprints and facial features, that may be harder, but still quite possible to defeat with a little preparation time and some suitable research.
Of course, the human element on the manual checks will likely be the easiest to defeat, as it usually is.
Perhaps "gives an opportunity for people with such inclinations to learn more" I suppose...but really, you may as well say that public libraries, with their chemistry and physics books, their copies of the communist manifesto and other 'inflammatory' tracts, create bomb-firing terrorists.
I'd call it 'differently vulnerable' rather than 'more vulnerable'--all things come with inherent risks, and the risks of any particular action must be weighed against the rewards thereof.
Encryption is necessary for many businesses, and if such attacks are truly a worry, they should be addressed in the same manner as any other risk.
Pity that the real legal system uses more of a "microsoft" development cycle instead--write something low quality, throw it past a few friends, and then make the public pay for it.
They profit from World of Warcraft subscriptions, and the P2P distribution model cuts their costs--hence increasing their profits.
Those of us who want to continue using P2P without having to jump through all sorts of hoops.
And I wouldn't want the RIAA to endorse using it...but I would, for instance, want Sun or IBM or any of the various game manufacturers to distribute their various products on a P2P model.
Actually, minor non-RIAA studios could do well to distribute P2Pwise...the Radiohead experiment has shown that such a thing -can- be popular; perhaps distributing a torrent with the album art and a little nag-document (go HERE to pay us so we can keep doing this!) via P2P channels would work well to circumvent most of the primary 'objections'
I could not afford music in college. I had no video game systems, and ran Linux because I could not afford any commercial software--not even the 'student version'
Those students I knew who could afford those things usually did not have much impetus to pirate music.
You're railing against a strawman, Anonycoward, and that's not good debating form.
Y'mean like Freenet?
Needs work before it's ready for primetime, really. It's a good idea, though.
We need to find a way to make P2P distribution models legitimately profitable for the corporations that lobby in Washington for these asinine laws. I was under the impression that the Warcraft folks already had some kind of a P2P model going for distributing their patches and suchlike--perhaps other companies could be induced to do the same?
Elsewise, it might become very popular and profitable to set up some kind of P2P-friendly VPN service, with endpoints just outside the DMZ of various college networks...