A few commenters have suggested that they have nothing to worry about because they let no "sensitive" information out onto the web.
Sorry to break it to you, but the world is not fair. People are sometimes framed or kangaroo-ed into apearing guilty of something when they are clearly not (I have had it happen). Sometimes, various authorities need to catch someone to hang blame upon for some crime. I've even heard cops tell a public defender, "We know he didn't do it, but we know he's a bad kid, so we got him."
Also, numerous (unregulated) consumer-monitoring agencies scrape up everything from public databases, buy lists from shops, service providers, your bank, your phone company, your credit card company, and your grocery "club card," sold subscriber lists, and so on. All of this data is correlated based on a few unique or semi-unique identifiers such as full name, SSN, phone number, credit card transaction number (it's illegal to track by CC #, but they get around this.), bank and account's last-four digits, addresses, and so on. This approach does produce some viable correlations, but typically yields "profiles" that are rife with errors.
HR departments use reports from these aggregators as if they were 100% accurate. There is no law in place that will allow you to opt out, to see their entire file on you, or to correct errors. There are anecdotes of people searching months for a job, only to find out at some point from an interviewer that, "you have XXXXX crime in your profile," even if you don't have a record. I once had collection agencies coming after me from Time-Warner Cable for bills on a Texas account — I have never lived in Texas, but the burden of proof was on me.
Despite what the aggregators would have everyone think, names are not unique. Phone numbers are not unique, as they are recycled. Email addresses are often not unique, as they are recycled.
Like it or not, there are many profiles on you that are beyond your access, and the law has not yet caught up with these practices.
I think Stalin's numbers are a bit higher. He was a bigger monster than the H-man.
For example, 6.5 million Ukrainians died of starvation during a single winter, due to Stalin stealing all of their food for Mother Russia.
Oh, and he re-introduced serfdom in the 20th century. USSR, communist, LOL. Farmers were owned by the land. The workers in cities were the proletariat. Party members were above it all. That's three classes, not one.
Fun fact: Farmers that were "healthy-looking" were killed or sent to labor camps. That is, they killed the ones that were the most skilled at farming — 20% of them. How stupid is that? Also, look up Lysenko, an anti-Darwinian "scientist" that, due to Stalin keeping him close, was responsible for widespread famine and failure of other agricultural and forestry projects.
Even at the height of the Cold War, the USA was sending shiploads of grain to its arch-enemy USSR. Because America feared a "cold, hungry Russia."
I had a similar experience. Drove my Nissan Sentra at 100 mph for about half an hour. (I was young and dumb.)
Suddenly, I had a James bond-style smokescreen in the rear-view mirror. Pulled over. Head gasket had blown or melted, and I had an oil fire on my hands.
I extinguished the oil fire with... I kid you not... a tea towel. That's all I had. I'd smother it out, and it would re-ignite. Repeat. Many, many times. Eventually, the engine cooled enough that it stopped re-igniting.
I drove to the next exit, bought several quarts of oil, and went on to my destination. Drove back home afterward, too, stopping occasionally to put another quart in. Fun times.
Elop went to Nokia as a subversive, to nuke their share price, so that MS could buy them on the cheap.
Save a company a few billion, and you tend to be remembered.
Although considering him an "outsider" is a bit of a stretch. And buying Nokia's handset business does NOT mean that MS now knows how to make hardware.
Well, then, Mission Accomplished. It is reality. Sometimes there are things in this world that are so horrifying, that someone feels compelled to publish images/videos of it, so that people can wake up and realize that there is something dangerous going on.
I dug a little deeper, and found some videos that were, uh, well, extremely disturbing. Yes, you say, that one, where the nurse uses a wire saw to cut the tibia and fibula, removing the necrotic foot. Directly into a trash bin — while conversing with the COMPLETELY AWAKE patient. Take my advice; don't look for the video.
Of course, trauma and tragedy are not new. Anyone who was on the internet in 1995 knows. For example, "Dan's Gallery of the Grotesque." Don't even Google it. I'm warning you. Horrific images that will indelibly burn into the viewer's mind. DO NOT GO. DO NOT GO.
Some profit-oriented people bought up many, many bridges, which the railroads needed to cross. They then hiked the tolls to the sky.
Los Angeles had a vibrant streetcar system in the early 20th century. GM bought them all up, for disassembly. If you visit LA, note the large number of oddly-wide streets, and parks that cut across neighborhoods in long straight lines. That is their genesis.
BP bought up a ton of solar-energy patents. BP-Solar exists, but not in a profit-making mode. It's just PR, and the goal is to stifle innovation in the field.
Oh, there are so many other examples. AC vs. DC (Edison won), the first car being a (French) electric, and... ah, forget it. Go read some books on the history of technology covering the past 200 years.
...economic theories based on or expounded by Libertarianism are flawed from the beginning because it assumes people will always act rationally and without fraud...
Isn't that essentially the (faulty) foundation assumption of the laissez-faire or "rational economic actors" theories of economics championed by Milton Friedman, et al.?
That is, the branch of economic "science" that is built on a flawed foundational assumption?
...see "Cargo-cult Science," as described by Feynmann...
...there is a whole segment of society who claims that "free speech doesn't mean you can just say whatever you want".
Actually, that is true, and not just in relation to free speech rights.
One of the first things they teach in law school is that, "my rights end where your nose begins." Think about that in an allegorical, not literal, sense.
Well, if you have even one "fb friend" who is outside the USA, and you post, your communication has traveled outside the border––to the NSA it is fair game.
Also, I'm pretty sure that posting in a "fb group," or reading posts in a "fb group," can be an international communication to thousands.
A bit off-topic, but if games with online playability lack security, it by their choice. They certainly spy on their players enough.
Get an IP sniffer.
When I play StarCraft II, which insists on being online even for single-player, I get tons of connection attempts going places other than Blizzard. I block them, and gameplay does not suffer.
* www.reuters.com
* www.googleanalytics.com
* akami (OK, that's for downloading updates)
* sevreral other all-digit IPs, which I also block.
...Take the job, and apply at Blizzard. If Blizzard accepts, be a douche and jump ship...
THIS!
Part of management training in many organizations is to ensure that no employee is irreplaceable. Redundancy, even in the workforce, is one of their key focus areas. That is –– you are expendable.
OK, not everywhere, but at many places yes. Treat your employer with the same respect they give you, and to your colleagues.
The thought of being in a nursing home, physically or mentally disabled, was the single scariest thing I had ever thought about
This is exactly what I've been thinking for years now...
I worked as a nurses' aide in a nursing home one college during summer. (Nurses' Aide = butt-wiper.) It was a depressing, terrifying job. Most "residents" had bed-pads because they couldn't get up to go poo. We had:
* A woman who had long lost her mind, was cemented in a fetal position, and regularly coded. Staff had to restart her heart each time, because she had no living relatives or living will.
* A woman who had long lost control of her body, but not her mind, and was just never visited by any of her children.
* The many who would be tied down to their bed, to prevent them from getting up and wandering around.
* The profoundly retarded girl (36 yo) that staff would purposely put into (rigid) seizure, in order to make it easier to change her bedding.
* The Alzheimer's woman who thought I was her son. When she'd be combative to other staff, they'd have me ask her, "please mom, just eat this pudding," which had sleep meds mixed in.
* Bedsores.
* And Golda, senile and assumed incapable of coherent speech. Staff were just to lazy to listen between the word salad and half-words. She eventually spoke a full sentence to me ("I need to go to the bathroom"), the only one in five years, I was told. I took her in, stepped away, and she had her first taste of freedom in years.
Needless to say, I will not allow myself to fall into such a situation in infirmity. Adult children of old people –– Your parent knows that living alone at home, doing what s/he wishes to do, may suffer a fatal fall or similar in their home. They are probably at peace with this. Don't let your own fear of personal, potential guilt lead you to essentially put your aging parent in a white-walled jail for their remaining years. Would you want to spend your last 10 years of life in a bed, with only a TV to keep you company?
The Yahoo terms of service clearly state that their hosting contracts are non-transferable and end upon death.
Is that TOS line something that will hold up in court in a violation-of-contract lawsuit? You can't sign away your rights.
Anyone can put up a sign, laws or not. Anyone can put something unenforceable in a contract. Neither means it will stick.
The salient question lies in the details of the contract that he agreed to when he paid Yahoo money. What was provided in return for his remunerance? Hosting? Storage space? A unique address? Non-transferrability probably does not (I'm reaching now) apply to inheritance, but rather sale or gifting to third parties.
Slashdot Mirror
A few commenters have suggested that they have nothing to worry about because they let no "sensitive" information out onto the web.
Sorry to break it to you, but the world is not fair. People are sometimes framed or kangaroo-ed into apearing guilty of something when they are clearly not (I have had it happen). Sometimes, various authorities need to catch someone to hang blame upon for some crime. I've even heard cops tell a public defender, "We know he didn't do it, but we know he's a bad kid, so we got him."
Also, numerous (unregulated) consumer-monitoring agencies scrape up everything from public databases, buy lists from shops, service providers, your bank, your phone company, your credit card company, and your grocery "club card," sold subscriber lists, and so on. All of this data is correlated based on a few unique or semi-unique identifiers such as full name, SSN, phone number, credit card transaction number (it's illegal to track by CC #, but they get around this.), bank and account's last-four digits, addresses, and so on. This approach does produce some viable correlations, but typically yields "profiles" that are rife with errors.
HR departments use reports from these aggregators as if they were 100% accurate. There is no law in place that will allow you to opt out, to see their entire file on you, or to correct errors. There are anecdotes of people searching months for a job, only to find out at some point from an interviewer that, "you have XXXXX crime in your profile," even if you don't have a record. I once had collection agencies coming after me from Time-Warner Cable for bills on a Texas account — I have never lived in Texas, but the burden of proof was on me.
Despite what the aggregators would have everyone think, names are not unique. Phone numbers are not unique, as they are recycled. Email addresses are often not unique, as they are recycled.
Like it or not, there are many profiles on you that are beyond your access, and the law has not yet caught up with these practices.
Happy privacy!
The Sharp El-406 series has been around for 20+ years. Trig, other bases, and a backspace. Current model is probably EL-406C, but I don't remember.
For me — reliable and familiar.
For you — familiar to standardized test proctors.
I think Stalin's numbers are a bit higher. He was a bigger monster than the H-man.
For example, 6.5 million Ukrainians died of starvation during a single winter, due to Stalin stealing all of their food for Mother Russia.
Oh, and he re-introduced serfdom in the 20th century. USSR, communist, LOL. Farmers were owned by the land. The workers in cities were the proletariat. Party members were above it all. That's three classes, not one.
Fun fact: Farmers that were "healthy-looking" were killed or sent to labor camps. That is, they killed the ones that were the most skilled at farming — 20% of them. How stupid is that? Also, look up Lysenko, an anti-Darwinian "scientist" that, due to Stalin keeping him close, was responsible for widespread famine and failure of other agricultural and forestry projects.
Even at the height of the Cold War, the USA was sending shiploads of grain to its arch-enemy USSR. Because America feared a "cold, hungry Russia."
I had a similar experience. Drove my Nissan Sentra at 100 mph for about half an hour. (I was young and dumb.)
Suddenly, I had a James bond-style smokescreen in the rear-view mirror. Pulled over. Head gasket had blown or melted, and I had an oil fire on my hands.
I extinguished the oil fire with... I kid you not... a tea towel. That's all I had. I'd smother it out, and it would re-ignite. Repeat. Many, many times. Eventually, the engine cooled enough that it stopped re-igniting.
I drove to the next exit, bought several quarts of oil, and went on to my destination. Drove back home afterward, too, stopping occasionally to put another quart in. Fun times.
Elop went to Nokia as a subversive, to nuke their share price, so that MS could buy them on the cheap.
Save a company a few billion, and you tend to be remembered.
Although considering him an "outsider" is a bit of a stretch. And buying Nokia's handset business does NOT mean that MS now knows how to make hardware.
[citation needed]
Canon makes good cameras.
Canon makes good projectors.
Canon makes good inkjet printers.
And... Canon makes good multi-capable printer-scanner-fax-sheet fed-flatbed-etc. capable machines. Also, they don't gouge you on ink like Epson does.
The CEO of Epson was quoted a few years ago as saying that printers are "vending machines for ink." F U Epson.
Guns and bows don't target, aim, and fire on people by themselves. These robots do.
Big difference.
You were shocked?
Well, then, Mission Accomplished. It is reality. Sometimes there are things in this world that are so horrifying, that someone feels compelled to publish images/videos of it, so that people can wake up and realize that there is something dangerous going on.
I dug a little deeper, and found some videos that were, uh, well, extremely disturbing. Yes, you say, that one, where the nurse uses a wire saw to cut the tibia and fibula, removing the necrotic foot. Directly into a trash bin — while conversing with the COMPLETELY AWAKE patient. Take my advice; don't look for the video.
Of course, trauma and tragedy are not new. Anyone who was on the internet in 1995 knows. For example, "Dan's Gallery of the Grotesque." Don't even Google it. I'm warning you. Horrific images that will indelibly burn into the viewer's mind. DO NOT GO. DO NOT GO.
"He who sacrifices freedom for security..." – B.J.F.
"The tree of liberty must..." – T.J.
"In the councils of government, we must..." – D.D.E.
On a more positive note, at least the gears of legislation seem to be responding.
Your last sentence is spot-on! Wish I hadn't posted upthread and could mod...
Ignoring politics...
Some profit-oriented people bought up many, many bridges, which the railroads needed to cross. They then hiked the tolls to the sky.
Los Angeles had a vibrant streetcar system in the early 20th century. GM bought them all up, for disassembly. If you visit LA, note the large number of oddly-wide streets, and parks that cut across neighborhoods in long straight lines. That is their genesis.
BP bought up a ton of solar-energy patents. BP-Solar exists, but not in a profit-making mode. It's just PR, and the goal is to stifle innovation in the field.
Oh, there are so many other examples. AC vs. DC (Edison won), the first car being a (French) electric, and ... ah, forget it. Go read some books on the history of technology covering the past 200 years.
...economic theories based on or expounded by Libertarianism are flawed from the beginning because it assumes people will always act rationally and without fraud...
Isn't that essentially the (faulty) foundation assumption of the laissez-faire or "rational economic actors" theories of economics championed by Milton Friedman, et al.?
That is, the branch of economic "science" that is built on a flawed foundational assumption?
...see "Cargo-cult Science," as described by Feynmann...
What's an Instagram?
Is that like a Polaroid, only 15 years after losing relevance?
...there is a whole segment of society who claims that "free speech doesn't mean you can just say whatever you want".
Actually, that is true, and not just in relation to free speech rights.
One of the first things they teach in law school is that, "my rights end where your nose begins." Think about that in an allegorical, not literal, sense.
Is there a better link than DenverPost?
Conveyer-belt animated right-column ads aren't my thing. Nor popups.
And the page loads to blank if you block.
Agreed. AVOID Aliexpress.
I purchased two items from them, not knowing... Both transactions are now in protracted disputes.
One was not as described (and cheaply manufactured), and the other simply never arrived.
...You forget, you don't control their ToS. If you don't agree, don't use it, period...
Define "use."
If you formerly had a profile, or have not logged in even once in a few years, are you still using their service (to host the profile)?
Well, if you have even one "fb friend" who is outside the USA, and you post, your communication has traveled outside the border––to the NSA it is fair game.
Also, I'm pretty sure that posting in a "fb group," or reading posts in a "fb group," can be an international communication to thousands.
Just a thought.
...And it does look as though Microsoft has pulled it off. ... But has it pulled off $8.5B worth of integration?'"
Well, if anyone uses Outlook or Skype to communicate, then yes. Yes, MS has "pulled off $8.5B worth of integration" for the NSA.
Skype is confirmed to be back-doored. And, with its brilliantly obfuscated code, would reasonably be expected to have a few more.
A bit off-topic, but if games with online playability lack security, it by their choice. They certainly spy on their players enough.
Get an IP sniffer.
When I play StarCraft II, which insists on being online even for single-player, I get tons of connection attempts going places other than Blizzard. I block them, and gameplay does not suffer.
* www.reuters.com
* www.googleanalytics.com
* akami (OK, that's for downloading updates)
* sevreral other all-digit IPs, which I also block.
...Take the job, and apply at Blizzard. If Blizzard accepts, be a douche and jump ship...
THIS!
Part of management training in many organizations is to ensure that no employee is irreplaceable. Redundancy, even in the workforce, is one of their key focus areas. That is –– you are expendable.
OK, not everywhere, but at many places yes. Treat your employer with the same respect they give you, and to your colleagues.
Maybe it just felt too close to home for Yahoo.
Yahoo should choose the same path, as it's clear that they've been spiraling down for many years now.
This little quote from the guy's site:
The thought of being in a nursing home, physically or mentally disabled, was the single scariest thing I had ever thought about
This is exactly what I've been thinking for years now...
I worked as a nurses' aide in a nursing home one college during summer. (Nurses' Aide = butt-wiper.) It was a depressing, terrifying job. Most "residents" had bed-pads because they couldn't get up to go poo. We had:
* A woman who had long lost her mind, was cemented in a fetal position, and regularly coded. Staff had to restart her heart each time, because she had no living relatives or living will.
* A woman who had long lost control of her body, but not her mind, and was just never visited by any of her children.
* The many who would be tied down to their bed, to prevent them from getting up and wandering around.
* The profoundly retarded girl (36 yo) that staff would purposely put into (rigid) seizure, in order to make it easier to change her bedding.
* The Alzheimer's woman who thought I was her son. When she'd be combative to other staff, they'd have me ask her, "please mom, just eat this pudding," which had sleep meds mixed in.
* Bedsores.
* And Golda, senile and assumed incapable of coherent speech. Staff were just to lazy to listen between the word salad and half-words. She eventually spoke a full sentence to me ("I need to go to the bathroom"), the only one in five years, I was told. I took her in, stepped away, and she had her first taste of freedom in years.
Needless to say, I will not allow myself to fall into such a situation in infirmity. Adult children of old people –– Your parent knows that living alone at home, doing what s/he wishes to do, may suffer a fatal fall or similar in their home. They are probably at peace with this. Don't let your own fear of personal, potential guilt lead you to essentially put your aging parent in a white-walled jail for their remaining years. Would you want to spend your last 10 years of life in a bed, with only a TV to keep you company?
The Yahoo terms of service clearly state that their hosting contracts are non-transferable and end upon death.
Is that TOS line something that will hold up in court in a violation-of-contract lawsuit? You can't sign away your rights.
Anyone can put up a sign, laws or not. Anyone can put something unenforceable in a contract. Neither means it will stick.
The salient question lies in the details of the contract that he agreed to when he paid Yahoo money. What was provided in return for his remunerance? Hosting? Storage space? A unique address? Non-transferrability probably does not (I'm reaching now) apply to inheritance, but rather sale or gifting to third parties.