Nevermind the cars, it is the other applications that are more important. Yes, this crack might actually be used to steal some cars, but I doubt it will become prevalant. As was pointed out in the article and other posters, the physical part of the key provides additional security, and the flatbed tow truck and other techniques are much easer methods to use.
However, it is much more of a problem in other RFID applications, where the RFID chip is the only key, e.g., highway toll tags (Ezpass), credit card replacements (Exxon/Mobil Speedpass). Sure they say they have backup security in place, such as Speedpass' 'only two fill-ups per day'. But this can still allow for a lot of fraud.
Worse yet, as was the case with identity theft, the the first victims will find it VERY HARD to clear their records and accounts; they will be presumed to be lying until it is common knowledge that the RFID is not secure.
They see through the corp BS
on
Who Needs Harvard?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The corporations USED TO offer "stable, high-paying jobs", but now offer neither.
Pretty much everyone knows that there is no corporate loyalty to their employees anymore, and that you cannot expect to have a position next year EVEN if you do a great job (strategy changes, mergers, sales of divisions, etc.).
Corporate pay is no longer what it used to be either. Except for getting to the absolue top, you may live comfortably, but you will not get wealty on 4 decades of corporate pay. And they are getting better at extracting more work for less (real) pay -- its called increased productivity.
In contrast, there are now many examples of excellent success in entrepreneurship, and the better control over your lifestyle. So, if you were smart and had a top education and a choice, would you go be a wage slave for some corp? Maybe for a few years just to get a bit more background and maybe connections, but not for long. Pretty soon, you won't put up with the corp BS, and you'll choose a better lifestyle running your own show. Ergo, there are fewer Ivy-types available to rise into those positions
"Care to give an example of YOUR freedoms that are being continually eroded?"
Let's start with the freedom to be considered innocent before proven guilty.
Continue on to the right to a fair and prompt trial by your peers.
Continue to the right to a proper legal defense.
And then there's that pesky Habeus Corpus thing, and lots more.
All the govt needs to do now is call you a "terrorist", and you can now be held indefinitely, as in possibly for the rest of your LIFE, without being charged, without access to lawyers, and even under the threat of being shipped overseas to a country that recognizes even fewer rights.
I might have an inclination to support this and other anti-terrorist laws (Patriot Act, etc.) if I thought it would be truly used with care, discretion, and only as intended, i.e., against real terrorist cases. Terrorists play a very nasty, violent, and real game, and we need exceptional tools to fight them on their ground.
However, within 6 months of getting Patriot I passed, Ashcroft's crews were touring around the country giving seminars to prosecutors on how to use these new powers in ordinary investigations and cases. Since the enforcers immediately abused the tools as soon as they were given, they are obviously untrustworthy and must be opposed.
As Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."
Your Alfred E Newman attitude is an example of this failure. You have apparently forgotten or do not care that our government is to be "of the people, by the people, for the people"? This attitude gains nothing and harms others, and as such is truly stupid (and I mean that exactly, as in the third law, not as a weak insult).
Many intelligent people are deeply concerned that we are losing the freedoms which made this country great (and not in a trivial red state/blue state way). How do we wake the others?
... and that was the bicycle flip designed by the physicist. The rest of the stuff is sensless drivel that will only repel kids, who will see it as putting lipstick on a pig (this concept well described in other comments).
The good part is DOING SOMETHING and GETTING KIDS INVOLVED. I once saw an article on a math program where kids were presented with a problem and asked to solve it. Any method they wanted was fine, e.g, formulas, iteration, successive approximation, etc. Then they discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each method, i.e., whether it produced a good answer, was understandible, quick to use, etc. This was started out in grade school at the earliest levels, when they only had the most basic of tools.
I thought this was wonderful, as it is exactly the way math is done at the edges of research. No one tells the researcher to solve the problem with method X, (s)he just has a goal, a toolbox, and a blank sheet of paper.
Unfortunately, this was years ago, and I've seen nothing of it since. Yet, every successful math or science program I've seen involves the kids in the real experience of measuring, quantifying and predicting stuff they liked, i.e., real science, not some rote memorization process. If they have a goal, then they have the motivation to overcome the obstacles.
Without direct involvement, it is just some dumb teacher handing out meaningless tedious assignments. Of course the teachers' union will never acknowledge that some teachers will utterly ruin their students' chances of learning. but that is a topic for another day.
Ok, maybe it should more properly be called "Identity Piracy", since it is more like 'piracy' of copyrighted materials. Someone makes, uses and benefits from an unauthorized copy, but the original owner is not deprived of the copy. "Identity Piracy" even has kind of a ring to it -- hmmm...
So, what is the origin of "Piracy"? Seafaring gangs that boarded other ships and stole their treasure at gunpoint, right? So, pirates deprived the owners of their goods, which would mean that piracy is thievery, so where does that leave us?
In the case of Identity Theft, much more is likely to be taken than just running up bills on an unsecured cretid card, and even that is bad enough. Identity thieves have taken out loans, mortgages, and even given the stolen identity when arrested for crimes.
For all of these, the victim must mount a REAL defence. This costs enormous amounts of time and money and a lot of aggravation.
A huge part of the problem is that he banks and other institutions PRESUME that YOU are lying, and that you are responsible for the debts.
I have friends who have had to deal with relatively light versions of account theft. It is an absurd and expensive distraction even when the bank acknowledges you are right. The banks can't get the mess cleaned up efficiently, and you must hound them for months.
Try doing a few hundred hours of utterly unproductive work with people who are uncooperative at best and hostile at worst, to merely not pay debts that aren't yours and to recover good standing that was yours. Also spend some real money on documentation and lawyers.
THEN tell me that it is only the companies that are victims.
I saw the one in Houston last year. In one of those very fortunate coincidences, just as I had walked from the top to the engines, and was wondering about the function of various features of the engines, a friend of mine who happens to work as an aerospace engineer called my cell phone. I had a great little mini-tour, "asking what about this thing?", and hearing about what it was and why it worked -- and some of it was just astonishing -- the critical pressures, forces and temperatures they work with.
I'm really glad to hear that these awsome works of technology will be brought indoors. I hope they put up really good descriptions of what you are seeing!
A company I worked for was very paranoid and badly managed (so much so that 30+ other people left within the same six week period as I did). After we left, they installed video monitoring of every desk, door monitoring and other intrusions.
However, it turns out that before that, they had installed keystroke monitors, and used this to obtain passwords to private web-based email accounts. We found this out because one of the former employees was hit with a lawsuit with "evidence" from his private Yahoo email account. The suit was bogus and never went anywhere, but he still had to start a defense.
The answer is simple, do not use ANY form of communication that intersects with any of your employer's systems. Use separate private cell phones, private email on your home computers or private laptops (off your employer's network), and talk off site.
Not only is this the safe thing to do it is also the right thing to do. Even when your employer has proven themselves to be irredeemably unfair, and that you are right to leave and compete with them, that still doesn't make it right to use their resources to do so. Get your own.
First, lasers do spread (although a lot less than incoherent light), so the dot several miles away is larger than the dot several feet away.
Second, aiming is not as difficult or impossible as you make out - -the plane is moving, but in a steady and not erratic way. He reportedly succeeded in temporarily "blinding" or at least dazzling the pilots fo the first plane. That was just with a hand held laser -- add a good mount and scope, it'll become trivial for any good rifleman. Remember, a good long distance rifleman can put a bullet in a 10" target at ranges of thousands of yards, and the bullet doesn't expand and is affected by wind. The laser is not significanlty affected by wind, and does expand.
Third, some kinds of lasers can blind you in microseconds, especially infrared lasers. They are well refracted by the human eye, and just being in the visible range unprotected will blind people literally before they know it. This is so bad that there are specific prohibitions in war crimes for using any type of laser to blind the enemy, and the spectrum on some weapons programs have been changed to prevent blinding from reflections (which would generate war crimes charges).
Fourth, you don't have to actually cause permanent blindness, just bounce enough light around the cockpit that the pilots cannot see well or focus consistently, and you have a good chance of crashing the plane.
Just because you aren't smart enough to figure out how to make something work doesn't mean that other people can't figure it out.
I don't have any great love for the government, and I'm against the Patriot act and especially misuse of it. But give credit where credit is due; they are right in this case. Even if this guy is merely an idiot -- he is a very dangerious idiot.
Yes, it says "no lighter", but it doesn't say how much heavier, if any. I'd ordinarily agree that the development process would make it lighter.
However, in this case, I'm not sure the poly spokes could be used in real production models, and they may have to revert to a metal construction. I'd expect the poly to be too flexible and not strong enough, but maybe they have some interesting tricks up their sleeve -- let's hope so!
The key here is the decoupling of the spring rate of the tire from the sidewall stiffness. That is HUGE and will give them all kinds of ability to dial in performance, ride, and other characteristics.
But there is a definite shortage of info in this article.
The statement '2-3x longer tread life than a radial' could be great, or it could be meaningless. Tread life is largely a function of tread compound, and a trade-off against grip level. They can make an extremely grippy tread that will only last for a few laps to qualify for a race, or a hard tread that will last 100K miles, but not both. Are they are actully projecting an ability to control the contact patch of this new wheel/tire so well that it wears less with the same compound, or are they merely planning to build it with a hard compound?
Another issue is the weight. Extra weight here is in the worst possible place for the car's performance -- rotating, unsprung, and far from the car's rotational center of mass. This wheel/tire looks heavier with the ribs under the tread. However, it could actually be lighter with polyethelene spokes, and lighter sidewalls that only have to keep out dirt, not react the loads. (Of course, I'm not sure how far I'd want to push the side loads on those poly spokes, but that's another story...). I'd have to conclude right now that it is heavier, or they'd promote that benefit too.
I think they're on to something interesting here. Is there any other info around on these issues?
Assuming that the thing hits us, we have LOTS more to worry about than only whether we personally get 2nd degree burns from the core fireball. Even if it hits on land, there will be a fairly wide zone of ejecta debris (hot rock) falling, starting fires, etc. If it hits in the ocean, it will be MUCH worse -- think colossal tsunami, as in several hundred feet. 1500 megatons is not the end of the world, but it is nothing to sneeze at.
If we are lucky enough to have it hit in a very sparsely populated land mass, then we have a big fireworks day, and some lingering weather effects (very red sunsets for years, and a cool decade). That is too much to hope for.
Realistically, whether it hits populated land or ocean, it is a mess. Although you may personally escape the impact or tsunami damage, no one will escape the economic damage, which will take years to recover.
Where will it hit? The time will be 9:21PM in London. It is coming at the earth from "behind" in its orbit. So, a 'direct hit' would be on the equator somewhere along the terminator (day/night line). Of course we don't know enough about the orbit to even know if it will hit, so there is as yet no way to tell where it will hit. Roughly any time zone from about GMT+8 to GMT-3 is at risk.
I'm currently choosing to be an optimist, even assuming that more certain observations confirm this to be on a collision course. My hope is that the global nature of the economic disaster will cause the nations of the world to fund a successful deflection mission, which will be cause for great celebration on that particular Friday the 13th.
Get a new/renewd passport NOW, i.e., before they start issuing the RFID ones. Passports are now good for 10 years. I doubt that they'll forcibly retire all existing ones at once, since it would cost too much, they'l probably replace them all by attrition, and now you'll have 10 years until renewal.
By then, it might have been successfully fought, or there could be good tested workarounds to the problems.
"Laptops (and other electronics) are also banned during takeoff/landing because these are the two most dangerous portions of the flight, and they don't want your laptops flying around the cabin in the event of an emergency."
Obiously, we don't want unstowed objects during takeoff and landing for a variety of reasons. I'm not talking about takeoff/landing, but after landing, when they are just taxiing, and they specified 'ok for cell phones' but not for "other electronic devices such as laptops" (and presumably palmtops), presumably refering to electronic interference issues.
If they were concerned only about unstowed objects, they would have said something like "please keep all objects stowed under the seats until we fully stop at the gate". Sure, sometimes it is only a couple of minutes before you arrive at the gate, but I've sat for as long as 45 minutes when they have a gate access problem at a busy airport.
Mostly, I'm just offended by the bad reasoning of going out of thier way to immideately permit use of the device most likely to cause interference, and simultaneously forbiding all less-interfering devices.
The reason cell phones are banned until aircraft are cruising at altitude, along with laptops, portable game consoles, DVD players, etc., is that their RF emissions supposedly interfere with the navigation and communication electronics on the aircraft.
Cell phones are also banned during the full flight because it was thought that phones traveling across the landscape at 300-500mph would cause problems in the cell switching system, which expected that phones would stay within each cell for a longer period. Apparently, more study indicates that the cell switching system could handle it well, so they are considering changing these rules.
On the navigation interference issue, studies have shown marginal effects at most. Cell phones are designed to emit much stronger signals than a laptop, and also emit similar frequencies from their circuitry. Yet, on several recent flights, they announced promptly on landing that cell phones could be switched on, but not other devices such as laptops. which are prohibited until the plane docs at the gate.
It seems to me that somebody isn't thinking and I'd hope that we could use our laptops immediately on landing also. My recent flights with this announcement were on Delta. Any similar experiences with different airlines?
The ISP's motives in implementing the redirection are good. They are trying to correct a mistake of their parent company, and conveniently redirecting the vast majority of users to the site they actually intended, and away from one they'd rather not see.
However, a precedent legitimizing silent redirection is a real problem. People should get what they asked for, precisely, not what some editor thinks they want, well meaning or not.
Cases like this clearly call for some correcting measure. Goldcd suggested a good solution, redirecting users to a 'There's been an error, which site do you really want?' page. Only a little inconvenient, and provides an alert and a choice to the user.
Their job is to gain more readers/viewers, it is NOT to seek the truth. Regardless of their idealitic beginnings, the business world filters for the ones who get readers/viewers. A journalist who gets the story right every time, but gets no readers will not last long in the business.
Journalists have an amazing knack for taking things out of context to make a 'better' story. I've been present at and/or the subject of several news stories, and the difference between what I experienced and what I subsequently read or saw is incredible -- and these were from journalists I somewhat knew and thogught were good! Yes, it was all 'true' in some literal, minamalist sense. But the stories were really built around the offhand 'splashy' comments, and never around the points that were really emphasized as important.
Moreover, there seems to be some kind of ethic to "tell both sides of the story". This of, course, presumes that there are two sides, and that the sides have some sembalance of equality. This reporting model might work well for politics.
However, science has a fundamentally different structure, based on testable facts and most effective theories/models. Science is NOT A DEMOCRACY; it is entirely possible for one person to be right and the entire rest of the world to be wrong (just ask Galleio).
Scientists will test the truth of the assertion, regardless of how many people believe one assertion or the other. Journalists, on the other hand, insist on forcing every story into their 'fair' structure, and reporting both 'sides'. Kind of like the guy who has a hammer so everything looks like a nail.
Of coruse, even if they wanted to take a scientific approach and test the truth, journalists typically have zero useful scientific/technical knowledge, so they are constantly getting it all wrong. How many stories ahve you seen where they cannot even get the basic units right, or write blatantly bad logic or analogies?
I grew up as an avid reader of the major news outlets (NY Times, WSJ, NBC, etc.) now I only occasionally scan these types of outlets. I've simply seen too many situations where I know the story and seen it totally botched. And they wonder why they're losing readership/viewership.
OK, I know about the 'tresspass to chattels' decision, and I can agree with your points that spam itself is a form of theft, in that many of the costs are foisted off on the recipient and their providers, who cannot choose whether or not to recieve it.
I am in no way trying to escuse the action of spamming, any more than I would excuse trespass (to land or to chattels). However, I am making a distinction between trespass and outright deception and theft.
It is one thing if I walk past your 'no tespassing' sign, tread on your manicured lawn, and take your time knocking on your door to try to sell you a legitimate product.
It is quite another if I walk past your 'no tespassing' sign, tread on your manicured lawn, and take your time knocking on your door in order to distract you while I steal your wallet.
These are both wrongs, but they are of a different scope and should be punished differently.
... is that this is not just unsolicited email, it is FRAUD.
If he was just sending unsolicited email advertising a real product that actually worked, then 9 years would indeed be too harsh. Creating an annoyance, even to many people, should not be punished more harshly than some murders and rapes.
But, he deliberately worked to deceive people in order to steal their money by selling a product that didn't work and that he knew didn't work. This is theft, and when done on such a grand scale ($400K - $700K per month), deserves to be so harshly punished. It could be argued that this is too light, considering the several year sentences typical for car theft.
I'd also be inclined to punish him for stupidity. Having raked in several million dollars in a few months, he should have been long gone sunning himself on a beach in Brazil under a new identity, not sitting around waiting to be busted.
An old Latin saying for "Thus passes away the glory of the world".
Tibetan Buddhist monks, as part of some ceremonies or celebrations, will spend days or weeks creating an enormously complex and beautiful work of art, called a Sand Mandala, which they then destroy. This is done to symbolize the impermanence of all things and provoke us to contemplate it. Have a look at the process: http://www.artnetwork.com/Mandala/gallery.html
I first experienced this impermanence in my pursuit of a sports career. In international level competition there is a phrase that is sort of a joke, but it is really more of an axiomatic truth: "you're only as good as your last race". It can be tough to learn that victory really is fleeting.
I've found it is good to be always forward looking, a trait reinforced by these experiences. You may also be saddened by the loss of potential, that your projects died early. Whatever the fate of our previous works, it seems that the only way to live is to focus on creating more good works in the future.
The shuttle has some good capabilities, but never really lived up to its promise of quick turnarounds and cheap flights. It is now 30 year old technology.
I was first going to pose the question about to whom they could sell the assts and program. But then I realized that no one would want to buy it because it couldn't be made profitable, even if one got the assets for $1.
Contrast this with Scaled Composites winning the X Prize and Branson investing to sell public commercial space flight in 3 years. Yes, this is suborbital and low capacity, but it does show that it is time to retire the old birds and develop something new.
I absolutely agree that laws must be established, infringing products taken off the market, and infringers and their distributors punished. If my products were being infringed, I'd be really pissed. But this is not the way to do it.
"When trying to establish a precendent, you pick easy targets."
This is not exactly new law. If there is an infringement here, any necessary precedent was established long ago. They do not need to go picking on a tiny retailer. If they need to establish that the infringing product is being sold, they can simply make and record a purchase at her store.
Remember, this is the full weight and force of the US Government. It is also their JOB to make a difference. If there is an infringement here, they need to first go after the manufacturer (or importer if made offshore). That would both be a more appropriate use of government force, and a more effective protection for the aggrieved competing manufacturer.
If it was our product being infringed, would this action make us happy? No, I think we'd both be saying, "great, you took $6 of infringing product off the shelves, what are you doing about the scumbag importer who's being in thousands more every week?"
"They have to take care when choosing distributors and partners. They obviously selected badly."
IF we were talking about a manufacturer or importer, or even a major distributor, I'd agree. If you are making or importing a product, it is your absolute responsibility to take all measures to make it legal. Perhaps, ideally, every retailer should also fully research the patent, trademark and copyright issues for every product they resell. But in the real world, this is an absurd duplication of effort and cost, and there must be some trust built into the system.
Perhaps there is some reason that the govt agents were right to bust that small storekeeper, but I haven't yet seen it.
It is nice to see the Govt doing their jobs well, in contrast to today's other story about the DHS going after some little store owner over a Rubik's Cube knockoff.
Identity theft is a HUGE problem, they have an uphill batle to fight it. This is the government doing what it should, helping citizens live their lives without interference. We need more of this.
"I think this is a bit simplistic. The senate had 735 Bills last year according to that site, with language such as:..."
No, as a senator, you ARE supposed to read it, and/or have hired trusted competent staff to read it and raise any issues. There is NO EXCUSE for a senator to say "we don't have enough time to read all the bills" -- yes, the workload is high, but that is what you ran and were elected to do, and you should at least take responsibility for your vote.
Moreover, that kind of stilted language is not an obstacle to them, as they are almost all lawyers; they are simply writing legally effective language in a way to which they are accustomed (as software engineers write code or specs).
We at least agree that more understanding and slower legislation would be better, and that the electorate's lack of intrest and education is a root cause of our dying democracy.
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Nevermind the cars, it is the other applications that are more important. Yes, this crack might actually be used to steal some cars, but I doubt it will become prevalant. As was pointed out in the article and other posters, the physical part of the key provides additional security, and the flatbed tow truck and other techniques are much easer methods to use.
However, it is much more of a problem in other RFID applications, where the RFID chip is the only key, e.g., highway toll tags (Ezpass), credit card replacements (Exxon/Mobil Speedpass). Sure they say they have backup security in place, such as Speedpass' 'only two fill-ups per day'. But this can still allow for a lot of fraud.
Worse yet, as was the case with identity theft, the the first victims will find it VERY HARD to clear their records and accounts; they will be presumed to be lying until it is common knowledge that the RFID is not secure.
The corporations USED TO offer "stable, high-paying jobs", but now offer neither.
Pretty much everyone knows that there is no corporate loyalty to their employees anymore, and that you cannot expect to have a position next year EVEN if you do a great job (strategy changes, mergers, sales of divisions, etc.).
Corporate pay is no longer what it used to be either. Except for getting to the absolue top, you may live comfortably, but you will not get wealty on 4 decades of corporate pay. And they are getting better at extracting more work for less (real) pay -- its called increased productivity.
In contrast, there are now many examples of excellent success in entrepreneurship, and the better control over your lifestyle. So, if you were smart and had a top education and a choice, would you go be a wage slave for some corp? Maybe for a few years just to get a bit more background and maybe connections, but not for long. Pretty soon, you won't put up with the corp BS, and you'll choose a better lifestyle running your own show. Ergo, there are fewer Ivy-types available to rise into those positions
"Care to give an example of YOUR freedoms that are being continually eroded?"
Let's start with the freedom to be considered innocent before proven guilty.
Continue on to the right to a fair and prompt trial by your peers.
Continue to the right to a proper legal defense.
And then there's that pesky Habeus Corpus thing, and lots more.
All the govt needs to do now is call you a "terrorist", and you can now be held indefinitely, as in possibly for the rest of your LIFE, without being charged, without access to lawyers, and even under the threat of being shipped overseas to a country that recognizes even fewer rights.
I might have an inclination to support this and other anti-terrorist laws (Patriot Act, etc.) if I thought it would be truly used with care, discretion, and only as intended, i.e., against real terrorist cases. Terrorists play a very nasty, violent, and real game, and we need exceptional tools to fight them on their ground.
However, within 6 months of getting Patriot I passed, Ashcroft's crews were touring around the country giving seminars to prosecutors on how to use these new powers in ordinary investigations and cases. Since the enforcers immediately abused the tools as soon as they were given, they are obviously untrustworthy and must be opposed.
As Edmund Burke said "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."
Your Alfred E Newman attitude is an example of this failure. You have apparently forgotten or do not care that our government is to be "of the people, by the people, for the people"? This attitude gains nothing and harms others, and as such is truly stupid (and I mean that exactly, as in the third law, not as a weak insult).
Many intelligent people are deeply concerned that we are losing the freedoms which made this country great (and not in a trivial red state/blue state way). How do we wake the others?
... and that was the bicycle flip designed by the physicist. The rest of the stuff is sensless drivel that will only repel kids, who will see it as putting lipstick on a pig (this concept well described in other comments).
The good part is DOING SOMETHING and GETTING KIDS INVOLVED. I once saw an article on a math program where kids were presented with a problem and asked to solve it. Any method they wanted was fine, e.g, formulas, iteration, successive approximation, etc. Then they discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each method, i.e., whether it produced a good answer, was understandible, quick to use, etc. This was started out in grade school at the earliest levels, when they only had the most basic of tools.
I thought this was wonderful, as it is exactly the way math is done at the edges of research. No one tells the researcher to solve the problem with method X, (s)he just has a goal, a toolbox, and a blank sheet of paper.
Unfortunately, this was years ago, and I've seen nothing of it since. Yet, every successful math or science program I've seen involves the kids in the real experience of measuring, quantifying and predicting stuff they liked, i.e., real science, not some rote memorization process. If they have a goal, then they have the motivation to overcome the obstacles.
Without direct involvement, it is just some dumb teacher handing out meaningless tedious assignments. Of course the teachers' union will never acknowledge that some teachers will utterly ruin their students' chances of learning. but that is a topic for another day.
Ok, maybe it should more properly be called "Identity Piracy", since it is more like 'piracy' of copyrighted materials. Someone makes, uses and benefits from an unauthorized copy, but the original owner is not deprived of the copy. "Identity Piracy" even has kind of a ring to it -- hmmm...
So, what is the origin of "Piracy"? Seafaring gangs that boarded other ships and stole their treasure at gunpoint, right? So, pirates deprived the owners of their goods, which would mean that piracy is thievery, so where does that leave us?
oh nevermind...
In the case of Identity Theft, much more is likely to be taken than just running up bills on an unsecured cretid card, and even that is bad enough. Identity thieves have taken out loans, mortgages, and even given the stolen identity when arrested for crimes.
For all of these, the victim must mount a REAL defence. This costs enormous amounts of time and money and a lot of aggravation.
A huge part of the problem is that he banks and other institutions PRESUME that YOU are lying, and that you are responsible for the debts.
I have friends who have had to deal with relatively light versions of account theft. It is an absurd and expensive distraction even when the bank acknowledges you are right. The banks can't get the mess cleaned up efficiently, and you must hound them for months.
Try doing a few hundred hours of utterly unproductive work with people who are uncooperative at best and hostile at worst, to merely not pay debts that aren't yours and to recover good standing that was yours. Also spend some real money on documentation and lawyers.
THEN tell me that it is only the companies that are victims.
Go see them if you ever get the chance!
I saw the one in Houston last year. In one of those very fortunate coincidences, just as I had walked from the top to the engines, and was wondering about the function of various features of the engines, a friend of mine who happens to work as an aerospace engineer called my cell phone. I had a great little mini-tour, "asking what about this thing?", and hearing about what it was and why it worked -- and some of it was just astonishing -- the critical pressures, forces and temperatures they work with.
I'm really glad to hear that these awsome works of technology will be brought indoors. I hope they put up really good descriptions of what you are seeing!
A company I worked for was very paranoid and badly managed (so much so that 30+ other people left within the same six week period as I did). After we left, they installed video monitoring of every desk, door monitoring and other intrusions.
However, it turns out that before that, they had installed keystroke monitors, and used this to obtain passwords to private web-based email accounts. We found this out because one of the former employees was hit with a lawsuit with "evidence" from his private Yahoo email account. The suit was bogus and never went anywhere, but he still had to start a defense.
The answer is simple, do not use ANY form of communication that intersects with any of your employer's systems. Use separate private cell phones, private email on your home computers or private laptops (off your employer's network), and talk off site.
Not only is this the safe thing to do it is also the right thing to do. Even when your employer has proven themselves to be irredeemably unfair, and that you are right to leave and compete with them, that still doesn't make it right to use their resources to do so. Get your own.
First, lasers do spread (although a lot less than incoherent light), so the dot several miles away is larger than the dot several feet away.
Second, aiming is not as difficult or impossible as you make out - -the plane is moving, but in a steady and not erratic way. He reportedly succeeded in temporarily "blinding" or at least dazzling the pilots fo the first plane. That was just with a hand held laser -- add a good mount and scope, it'll become trivial for any good rifleman. Remember, a good long distance rifleman can put a bullet in a 10" target at ranges of thousands of yards, and the bullet doesn't expand and is affected by wind. The laser is not significanlty affected by wind, and does expand.
Third, some kinds of lasers can blind you in microseconds, especially infrared lasers. They are well refracted by the human eye, and just being in the visible range unprotected will blind people literally before they know it. This is so bad that there are specific prohibitions in war crimes for using any type of laser to blind the enemy, and the spectrum on some weapons programs have been changed to prevent blinding from reflections (which would generate war crimes charges).
Fourth, you don't have to actually cause permanent blindness, just bounce enough light around the cockpit that the pilots cannot see well or focus consistently, and you have a good chance of crashing the plane.
Just because you aren't smart enough to figure out how to make something work doesn't mean that other people can't figure it out.
I don't have any great love for the government, and I'm against the Patriot act and especially misuse of it. But give credit where credit is due; they are right in this case. Even if this guy is merely an idiot -- he is a very dangerious idiot.
Yes, it says "no lighter", but it doesn't say how much heavier, if any. I'd ordinarily agree that the development process would make it lighter.
However, in this case, I'm not sure the poly spokes could be used in real production models, and they may have to revert to a metal construction. I'd expect the poly to be too flexible and not strong enough, but maybe they have some interesting tricks up their sleeve -- let's hope so!
The key here is the decoupling of the spring rate of the tire from the sidewall stiffness. That is HUGE and will give them all kinds of ability to dial in performance, ride, and other characteristics.
But there is a definite shortage of info in this article.
The statement '2-3x longer tread life than a radial' could be great, or it could be meaningless. Tread life is largely a function of tread compound, and a trade-off against grip level. They can make an extremely grippy tread that will only last for a few laps to qualify for a race, or a hard tread that will last 100K miles, but not both. Are they are actully projecting an ability to control the contact patch of this new wheel/tire so well that it wears less with the same compound, or are they merely planning to build it with a hard compound?
Another issue is the weight. Extra weight here is in the worst possible place for the car's performance -- rotating, unsprung, and far from the car's rotational center of mass. This wheel/tire looks heavier with the ribs under the tread. However, it could actually be lighter with polyethelene spokes, and lighter sidewalls that only have to keep out dirt, not react the loads. (Of course, I'm not sure how far I'd want to push the side loads on those poly spokes, but that's another story...). I'd have to conclude right now that it is heavier, or they'd promote that benefit too.
I think they're on to something interesting here. Is there any other info around on these issues?
Assuming that the thing hits us, we have LOTS more to worry about than only whether we personally get 2nd degree burns from the core fireball. Even if it hits on land, there will be a fairly wide zone of ejecta debris (hot rock) falling, starting fires, etc. If it hits in the ocean, it will be MUCH worse -- think colossal tsunami, as in several hundred feet. 1500 megatons is not the end of the world, but it is nothing to sneeze at.
If we are lucky enough to have it hit in a very sparsely populated land mass, then we have a big fireworks day, and some lingering weather effects (very red sunsets for years, and a cool decade). That is too much to hope for.
Realistically, whether it hits populated land or ocean, it is a mess. Although you may personally escape the impact or tsunami damage, no one will escape the economic damage, which will take years to recover.
Where will it hit? The time will be 9:21PM in London. It is coming at the earth from "behind" in its orbit. So, a 'direct hit' would be on the equator somewhere along the terminator (day/night line). Of course we don't know enough about the orbit to even know if it will hit, so there is as yet no way to tell where it will hit. Roughly any time zone from about GMT+8 to GMT-3 is at risk.
I'm currently choosing to be an optimist, even assuming that more certain observations confirm this to be on a collision course. My hope is that the global nature of the economic disaster will cause the nations of the world to fund a successful deflection mission, which will be cause for great celebration on that particular Friday the 13th.
Get a new/renewd passport NOW, i.e., before they start issuing the RFID ones. Passports are now good for 10 years. I doubt that they'll forcibly retire all existing ones at once, since it would cost too much, they'l probably replace them all by attrition, and now you'll have 10 years until renewal.
By then, it might have been successfully fought, or there could be good tested workarounds to the problems.
"Laptops (and other electronics) are also banned during takeoff/landing because these are the two most dangerous portions of the flight, and they don't want your laptops flying around the cabin in the event of an emergency."
Obiously, we don't want unstowed objects during takeoff and landing for a variety of reasons. I'm not talking about takeoff/landing, but after landing, when they are just taxiing, and they specified 'ok for cell phones' but not for "other electronic devices such as laptops" (and presumably palmtops), presumably refering to electronic interference issues.
If they were concerned only about unstowed objects, they would have said something like "please keep all objects stowed under the seats until we fully stop at the gate". Sure, sometimes it is only a couple of minutes before you arrive at the gate, but I've sat for as long as 45 minutes when they have a gate access problem at a busy airport.
Mostly, I'm just offended by the bad reasoning of going out of thier way to immideately permit use of the device most likely to cause interference, and simultaneously forbiding all less-interfering devices.
The reason cell phones are banned until aircraft are cruising at altitude, along with laptops, portable game consoles, DVD players, etc., is that their RF emissions supposedly interfere with the navigation and communication electronics on the aircraft.
Cell phones are also banned during the full flight because it was thought that phones traveling across the landscape at 300-500mph would cause problems in the cell switching system, which expected that phones would stay within each cell for a longer period. Apparently, more study indicates that the cell switching system could handle it well, so they are considering changing these rules.
On the navigation interference issue, studies have shown marginal effects at most. Cell phones are designed to emit much stronger signals than a laptop, and also emit similar frequencies from their circuitry. Yet, on several recent flights, they announced promptly on landing that cell phones could be switched on, but not other devices such as laptops. which are prohibited until the plane docs at the gate.
It seems to me that somebody isn't thinking and I'd hope that we could use our laptops immediately on landing also. My recent flights with this announcement were on Delta. Any similar experiences with different airlines?
Hmmm, I don't live in AU either, and hadn't seen any of the comments that the redirection had an alert/option. If so, then cheers for BigPond!
I certainly agree that they're in a tough spot
The ISP's motives in implementing the redirection are good. They are trying to correct a mistake of their parent company, and conveniently redirecting the vast majority of users to the site they actually intended, and away from one they'd rather not see.
However, a precedent legitimizing silent redirection is a real problem. People should get what they asked for, precisely, not what some editor thinks they want, well meaning or not.
Cases like this clearly call for some correcting measure. Goldcd suggested a good solution, redirecting users to a 'There's been an error, which site do you really want?' page. Only a little inconvenient, and provides an alert and a choice to the user.
Mod the parent up.
...from journalists!!
Their job is to gain more readers/viewers, it is NOT to seek the truth. Regardless of their idealitic beginnings, the business world filters for the ones who get readers/viewers. A journalist who gets the story right every time, but gets no readers will not last long in the business.
Journalists have an amazing knack for taking things out of context to make a 'better' story. I've been present at and/or the subject of several news stories, and the difference between what I experienced and what I subsequently read or saw is incredible -- and these were from journalists I somewhat knew and thogught were good! Yes, it was all 'true' in some literal, minamalist sense. But the stories were really built around the offhand 'splashy' comments, and never around the points that were really emphasized as important.
Moreover, there seems to be some kind of ethic to "tell both sides of the story". This of, course, presumes that there are two sides, and that the sides have some sembalance of equality. This reporting model might work well for politics.
However, science has a fundamentally different structure, based on testable facts and most effective theories/models. Science is NOT A DEMOCRACY; it is entirely possible for one person to be right and the entire rest of the world to be wrong (just ask Galleio).
Scientists will test the truth of the assertion, regardless of how many people believe one assertion or the other. Journalists, on the other hand, insist on forcing every story into their 'fair' structure, and reporting both 'sides'. Kind of like the guy who has a hammer so everything looks like a nail.
Of coruse, even if they wanted to take a scientific approach and test the truth, journalists typically have zero useful scientific/technical knowledge, so they are constantly getting it all wrong. How many stories ahve you seen where they cannot even get the basic units right, or write blatantly bad logic or analogies?
I grew up as an avid reader of the major news outlets (NY Times, WSJ, NBC, etc.) now I only occasionally scan these types of outlets. I've simply seen too many situations where I know the story and seen it totally botched. And they wonder why they're losing readership/viewership.
OK, I know about the 'tresspass to chattels' decision, and I can agree with your points that spam itself is a form of theft, in that many of the costs are foisted off on the recipient and their providers, who cannot choose whether or not to recieve it.
I am in no way trying to escuse the action of spamming, any more than I would excuse trespass (to land or to chattels). However, I am making a distinction between trespass and outright deception and theft.
It is one thing if I walk past your 'no tespassing' sign, tread on your manicured lawn, and take your time knocking on your door to try to sell you a legitimate product.
It is quite another if I walk past your 'no tespassing' sign, tread on your manicured lawn, and take your time knocking on your door in order to distract you while I steal your wallet.
These are both wrongs, but they are of a different scope and should be punished differently.
... is that this is not just unsolicited email, it is FRAUD.
If he was just sending unsolicited email advertising a real product that actually worked, then 9 years would indeed be too harsh. Creating an annoyance, even to many people, should not be punished more harshly than some murders and rapes.
But, he deliberately worked to deceive people in order to steal their money by selling a product that didn't work and that he knew didn't work. This is theft, and when done on such a grand scale ($400K - $700K per month), deserves to be so harshly punished. It could be argued that this is too light, considering the several year sentences typical for car theft.
I'd also be inclined to punish him for stupidity. Having raked in several million dollars in a few months, he should have been long gone sunning himself on a beach in Brazil under a new identity, not sitting around waiting to be busted.
An old Latin saying for "Thus passes away the glory of the world".
Tibetan Buddhist monks, as part of some ceremonies or celebrations, will spend days or weeks creating an enormously complex and beautiful work of art, called a Sand Mandala, which they then destroy. This is done to symbolize the impermanence of all things and provoke us to contemplate it. Have a look at the process: http://www.artnetwork.com/Mandala/gallery.html
I first experienced this impermanence in my pursuit of a sports career. In international level competition there is a phrase that is sort of a joke, but it is really more of an axiomatic truth: "you're only as good as your last race". It can be tough to learn that victory really is fleeting.
I've found it is good to be always forward looking, a trait reinforced by these experiences. You may also be saddened by the loss of potential, that your projects died early. Whatever the fate of our previous works, it seems that the only way to live is to focus on creating more good works in the future.
The shuttle has some good capabilities, but never really lived up to its promise of quick turnarounds and cheap flights. It is now 30 year old technology.
I was first going to pose the question about to whom they could sell the assts and program. But then I realized that no one would want to buy it because it couldn't be made profitable, even if one got the assets for $1.
Contrast this with Scaled Composites winning the X Prize and Branson investing to sell public commercial space flight in 3 years. Yes, this is suborbital and low capacity, but it does show that it is time to retire the old birds and develop something new.
I absolutely agree that laws must be established, infringing products taken off the market, and infringers and their distributors punished. If my products were being infringed, I'd be really pissed. But this is not the way to do it.
"When trying to establish a precendent, you pick easy targets."
This is not exactly new law. If there is an infringement here, any necessary precedent was established long ago. They do not need to go picking on a tiny retailer. If they need to establish that the infringing product is being sold, they can simply make and record a purchase at her store.
Remember, this is the full weight and force of the US Government. It is also their JOB to make a difference. If there is an infringement here, they need to first go after the manufacturer (or importer if made offshore). That would both be a more appropriate use of government force, and a more effective protection for the aggrieved competing manufacturer.
If it was our product being infringed, would this action make us happy? No, I think we'd both be saying, "great, you took $6 of infringing product off the shelves, what are you doing about the scumbag importer who's being in thousands more every week?"
"They have to take care when choosing distributors and partners. They obviously selected badly."
IF we were talking about a manufacturer or importer, or even a major distributor, I'd agree. If you are making or importing a product, it is your absolute responsibility to take all measures to make it legal. Perhaps, ideally, every retailer should also fully research the patent, trademark and copyright issues for every product they resell. But in the real world, this is an absurd duplication of effort and cost, and there must be some trust built into the system.
Perhaps there is some reason that the govt agents were right to bust that small storekeeper, but I haven't yet seen it.
It is nice to see the Govt doing their jobs well, in contrast to today's other story about the DHS going after some little store owner over a Rubik's Cube knockoff.
Identity theft is a HUGE problem, they have an uphill batle to fight it. This is the government doing what it should, helping citizens live their lives without interference. We need more of this.
"I think this is a bit simplistic. The senate had 735 Bills last year according to that site, with language such as:..."
No, as a senator, you ARE supposed to read it, and/or have hired trusted competent staff to read it and raise any issues. There is NO EXCUSE for a senator to say "we don't have enough time to read all the bills" -- yes, the workload is high, but that is what you ran and were elected to do, and you should at least take responsibility for your vote.
Moreover, that kind of stilted language is not an obstacle to them, as they are almost all lawyers; they are simply writing legally effective language in a way to which they are accustomed (as software engineers write code or specs).
We at least agree that more understanding and slower legislation would be better, and that the electorate's lack of intrest and education is a root cause of our dying democracy.