Okay. These people happened to be flying with something that looks very suspicious. A cellphone wired up to some other electronic device. Okay. Occasionally people do fly with suspicious looking items that are completely innocent. Then these same people "forget" it and leave it on an airplane? When's the last time you forgot a piece of carry-on luggage on a plane? I'm sure it happens occasionally, but when people are flying they are usually careful about such things. Now put the two together. What are the chances that a group of people bring a very suspicious looking electronic device onto a plane and then they all simultaneously forget it there? Isn't it possibly a bit more likely that they were playing some sort of a prank, or trying to test security at the airport and it backfired? Just a thought.
If you read the article, you'll see this policy doesn't cover all flights to Canada, only to those to cities like Toronto, which could potentially pass over US airspace. Even if the flight plan doesn't take the flight over the US, if the flight is diverted a bit due to weather or traffic, it could be in US airspace.
Even though the flights may be landing in Canada or Mexico, there's still a good chance they will fly over U.S. airspace. As annoying and paranoid the U.S. policies tend to be, they do have a right to control flights over their airspace.
The proposal also targets tools used to commit offences: the production or sale of devices such as computer programs designed for cyber-attacks, or which find a computer password by which an information system can be accessed, would constitute criminal offences.
So, what would the scope of such a prohibition be? Would pen testing tools commonly used by security professionals be prohibited in Europe? Would you need a license to possess or use such tools? This sounds like an overreaching law. And since when did the European parliament get the authority to impose mandatory minimum prison sentences in its member nations?
I ALWAYS pay my use tax when it is due (which is rarely due to exeptions, but I have paid it twice) and this sounds like double taxation to me, unless they also change their laws on the books.
It isn't. You don't have to pay use tax on items for which you've already paid sales tax. If you pay out of state sales tax on something, you only have to pay use tax if the rate you paid is less than your own state's sales tax and you only have to pay tax on the difference. The tax described here is paid to your OWN state as a sales tax, so use tax wouldn't apply.
The Higgs Mechanism is thought to give particles mass, and the Higgs boson is the particle that we anticipate to be the carrier particle for the Higgs field.
Your question is a little bit like asking "if all other things get their light from photons, where do the photons get their light from?", which is to say, it reveals a bit of a misunderstanding about what's actually going on. That's okay though, because hardly anyone bothers to explain these things.
No, that's not a good analogy, because Higgs particles do indeed have a mass of their own, while photons don't tan. Higgs particles can interact with themselves, and that's why they can have a mass while also giving other particles their mass. A better photon analogy would be this: photons carry the electromagnetic force and so they can be said to give charged particles their charge. But photons don't self-interact, so photons themselves don't have charge.
Warren Buffet has gotten much less ethical in his old age. He used to enable businesses and growth. Now he is advocating destructive social trends in the hopes of getting away with the largest tax evasion scheme in history.
which usually kills people nearby but leaves the drunk unaffected, if only because liquor makes their body a doughy mass to be thrown about while sober people tense up and break bones and crap.
Do you have any data or citations whatsoever to back up that assertion? I've never heard anything like it before.
How can they forbid ssh and still call themselves a university?
SSH'ing offsite is a basic prerequisite for all sorts of research in the physical sciences. It's an operation so basic that folks in physics don't even admit the possibility that someone would want to block it.
At my old university the public (no logon required) wifi was heavily port-filtered. They blocked port 110, for instance -- no POP mail. But they left open SSH, knowing that people relied on it to get work done.
What many universities do is they allow ssh, but they use a firewall with a built-in ssh decryptor. Essentially the firewall acts as a man in the middle. The plaintext never leaves the firewall, but it is used in applying firewall rules which can include a prohibition on tunneling port 80 and the like. So, whenever you ssh off campus, the key fingerprint is that of the firewall, not the off campus server. You can check for MITM attacks occurring off campus by accessing a web interface to the firewall which will show you the remote key fingerprint for the host you are connecting to. It's quite clever actually.
After they lost the case, the FBI tried to get warrants for all the existing trackers. Most of those requests were granted, like they usually are, and the 3000 are the ones where they were denied.
I don't think that would help them. If you read the opinion of the Court carefully, you'll see that in the case decided, there was a warrant issued, but the tracking device was installed one day after the warrant expired and was installed in a different state than that for which the warrant was supposed to apply. I don't think retroactive warrants could be issued, and since the majority in the case found it was the trespassing act of installing the device which triggered the Fourth Amendment problem, I don't think the issuing of a warrant after the fact of installation would help the government.
I read about it in a BBC article. They said that they caught one person who was a trucker. Probably the trucker was not just a curious kid. It still begs the question... Why? What purpose does it serve?
It says in the article that people use the jammers to thwart GPS tracking devices installed in the vehicle. These tracking devices are used in commercial vehicles to enforce company policy with regard to vehicle usage, as well as by law enforcement to track criminal suspects.
Actually, it only shows a disrespect for Slashdot readers. As has been pointed out by a previous commenter, that inflamatory quote does not appear anywhere in the linked article, and as far as I can tell is an invention either of the story submitter or Slashdot editor.
There is nothing in FRAND, that I can see, that prohibits open source software or other open IP
There most certainly is; from the GPL:
If there is a problem here, it is with the GPL, not with FRAND. As far as I can tell, BSD licensed software should be just fine. The GPL is not a free license, it is a very restrictive license.
But I'm not sure there is even a problem. The quote from the FRAND requirement posted above makes reference to patents, not to copyright: "FRAND is an approach used for decades by Standards committees that require any participant and any IP involved with a proposed Standard to offer open and uniform patent licensing to everyone (on the planet)." [emphasis mine]. GPL is a copyright license, not a patent license. Copyright law and patent law are two entirely different things, so I'm not sure there is any conflict here at all.
You've cited the regulations that pertain to regulation of transmitters, but nothing there says that they can't also regulate receivers. In particular, this Slashdot story posted today talks about Google applying for FCC permission to set up some RECEIVING antennas near their Iowa datacenter.
The FCC only certifies TRANSMITTERS (both intentional and unintentional transmitters).
Can you provide a citation for this? Your statement is actually completely false. FCC certifies both transmitters and receivers. (Look on the back of any television with a tuner or radio and you'll see the FCC mark.
That kind of link would only be possible under the following conditions;
1. You would have to purchase the exact same list every time you went there. A different list would create a instance of you car there but no identifying list.
2. Noone else could purchase exactly the same list of items; An instance of the list being purchased without you car being there.
At best there could be a probable link.
The other issue is that there are hundreds of different lists purchased every day and hundreds of different cars parked in the lot ever day which creates a huge mamy to many relationship. Trying to link lists to cars is almot impossible.
Who is to say you even went into the store as many Targets are in malls.
I think you are forgetting about in-store security cameras and face recognition software. They don't even have to match your face to a database. They only need to match the face captured on the parking lot cam along side your license plate to the face of the customer at the cash register.
Every now and then, a story pops up on Slashdot describing how one company or other is getting around browser security features to invade people's privacy. A while back the story was about "supercookies" that couldn't be deleted but would let some companies know whether you have visited their website before, etc. The blame is always directed squarely at the company doing the "exploiting".
I think the more important issue is the security problems in the browser itself, which enable these tactics to be employed. If large companies like Google are exploiting these vulnerabilities, then we can only assume that smaller scale but potentially much more malicious hackers are employing similar tricks. Companies like Google, when they do such things are pointing out serious vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. The problem won't go away just because big companies like Google voluntarily decide to stop exploiting browser vulnerabilities. The problem will only go away when the browsers (and possibly plugins) are fixed and patched so the exploits are impossible.
4 is otherwise devoid of artistic/diagnostic merit
You didn't seriously just try to say that if images of kids are devoid of artistic merit (meaning, in someone's opinion... eye of the beholder and all that), then those images are child porn, did you?
I think his list was meant to be conjunctive rather than disjunctive. (I.e. he is assuming the word "and" between his four points, not "or".) But I still agree that 4 shouldn't be in the list. There is no place for that kind of subjective judgement in legal definitions, especially those attached to laws which carry such harsh penalties.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay. These people happened to be flying with something that looks very suspicious. A cellphone wired up to some other electronic device. Okay. Occasionally people do fly with suspicious looking items that are completely innocent. Then these same people "forget" it and leave it on an airplane? When's the last time you forgot a piece of carry-on luggage on a plane? I'm sure it happens occasionally, but when people are flying they are usually careful about such things. Now put the two together. What are the chances that a group of people bring a very suspicious looking electronic device onto a plane and then they all simultaneously forget it there? Isn't it possibly a bit more likely that they were playing some sort of a prank, or trying to test security at the airport and it backfired? Just a thought.
UK -> Canada never comes near US airspace.
If you read the article, you'll see this policy doesn't cover all flights to Canada, only to those to cities like Toronto, which could potentially pass over US airspace. Even if the flight plan doesn't take the flight over the US, if the flight is diverted a bit due to weather or traffic, it could be in US airspace.
Even though the flights may be landing in Canada or Mexico, there's still a good chance they will fly over U.S. airspace. As annoying and paranoid the U.S. policies tend to be, they do have a right to control flights over their airspace.
The proposal also targets tools used to commit offences: the production or sale of devices such as computer programs designed for cyber-attacks, or which find a computer password by which an information system can be accessed, would constitute criminal offences.
So, what would the scope of such a prohibition be? Would pen testing tools commonly used by security professionals be prohibited in Europe? Would you need a license to possess or use such tools? This sounds like an overreaching law. And since when did the European parliament get the authority to impose mandatory minimum prison sentences in its member nations?
How does one play a game of Football without that "optional game play" element known as the kickoff?
You could throw the ball instead. However, I think they were referring to the after-the-touchdown kick through the goalposts.
But there's no reason to opt out of the point-after kick. I think they were referring to punts and field goal attempts, which are optional.
I ALWAYS pay my use tax when it is due (which is rarely due to exeptions, but I have paid it twice) and this sounds like double taxation to me, unless they also change their laws on the books.
It isn't. You don't have to pay use tax on items for which you've already paid sales tax. If you pay out of state sales tax on something, you only have to pay use tax if the rate you paid is less than your own state's sales tax and you only have to pay tax on the difference. The tax described here is paid to your OWN state as a sales tax, so use tax wouldn't apply.
There are analog DVDs?
Most of the DVD's from the 1960s and 1970s were analog. Digital DVDs started to become popular in the 1980s.
wait... photons or protons?
photons
The Higgs Mechanism is thought to give particles mass, and the Higgs boson is the particle that we anticipate to be the carrier particle for the Higgs field. Your question is a little bit like asking "if all other things get their light from photons, where do the photons get their light from?", which is to say, it reveals a bit of a misunderstanding about what's actually going on. That's okay though, because hardly anyone bothers to explain these things.
No, that's not a good analogy, because Higgs particles do indeed have a mass of their own, while photons don't tan. Higgs particles can interact with themselves, and that's why they can have a mass while also giving other particles their mass. A better photon analogy would be this: photons carry the electromagnetic force and so they can be said to give charged particles their charge. But photons don't self-interact, so photons themselves don't have charge.
Because those jobs will be concentrated in fewer service provider centers, requiring fewer people to manage them.
Isn't that what progress is supposed to be about: accomplishing the same tasks with less labor?
That's just nonsense. The correct word is "sow".
Umm, a sow is a female pig. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Warren Buffet has gotten much less ethical in his old age. He used to enable businesses and growth. Now he is advocating destructive social trends in the hopes of getting away with the largest tax evasion scheme in history.
Citation please?
which usually kills people nearby but leaves the drunk unaffected, if only because liquor makes their body a doughy mass to be thrown about while sober people tense up and break bones and crap.
Do you have any data or citations whatsoever to back up that assertion? I've never heard anything like it before.
How can they forbid ssh and still call themselves a university?
SSH'ing offsite is a basic prerequisite for all sorts of research in the physical sciences. It's an operation so basic that folks in physics don't even admit the possibility that someone would want to block it.
At my old university the public (no logon required) wifi was heavily port-filtered. They blocked port 110, for instance -- no POP mail. But they left open SSH, knowing that people relied on it to get work done.
What many universities do is they allow ssh, but they use a firewall with a built-in ssh decryptor. Essentially the firewall acts as a man in the middle. The plaintext never leaves the firewall, but it is used in applying firewall rules which can include a prohibition on tunneling port 80 and the like. So, whenever you ssh off campus, the key fingerprint is that of the firewall, not the off campus server. You can check for MITM attacks occurring off campus by accessing a web interface to the firewall which will show you the remote key fingerprint for the host you are connecting to. It's quite clever actually.
After they lost the case, the FBI tried to get warrants for all the existing trackers. Most of those requests were granted, like they usually are, and the 3000 are the ones where they were denied.
I don't think that would help them. If you read the opinion of the Court carefully, you'll see that in the case decided, there was a warrant issued, but the tracking device was installed one day after the warrant expired and was installed in a different state than that for which the warrant was supposed to apply. I don't think retroactive warrants could be issued, and since the majority in the case found it was the trespassing act of installing the device which triggered the Fourth Amendment problem, I don't think the issuing of a warrant after the fact of installation would help the government.
I read about it in a BBC article. They said that they caught one person who was a trucker. Probably the trucker was not just a curious kid. It still begs the question... Why? What purpose does it serve?
It says in the article that people use the jammers to thwart GPS tracking devices installed in the vehicle. These tracking devices are used in commercial vehicles to enforce company policy with regard to vehicle usage, as well as by law enforcement to track criminal suspects.
It only shows the disrespect for the passengers.
Actually, it only shows a disrespect for Slashdot readers. As has been pointed out by a previous commenter, that inflamatory quote does not appear anywhere in the linked article, and as far as I can tell is an invention either of the story submitter or Slashdot editor.
There is nothing in FRAND, that I can see, that prohibits open source software or other open IP
There most certainly is; from the GPL:
If there is a problem here, it is with the GPL, not with FRAND. As far as I can tell, BSD licensed software should be just fine. The GPL is not a free license, it is a very restrictive license.
But I'm not sure there is even a problem. The quote from the FRAND requirement posted above makes reference to patents, not to copyright: "FRAND is an approach used for decades by Standards committees that require any participant and any IP involved with a proposed Standard to offer open and uniform patent licensing to everyone (on the planet)." [emphasis mine]. GPL is a copyright license, not a patent license. Copyright law and patent law are two entirely different things, so I'm not sure there is any conflict here at all.
Everything I stated was 100% accurate.
You've cited the regulations that pertain to regulation of transmitters, but nothing there says that they can't also regulate receivers. In particular, this Slashdot story posted today talks about Google applying for FCC permission to set up some RECEIVING antennas near their Iowa datacenter.
The FCC only certifies TRANSMITTERS (both intentional and unintentional transmitters).
Can you provide a citation for this? Your statement is actually completely false. FCC certifies both transmitters and receivers. (Look on the back of any television with a tuner or radio and you'll see the FCC mark.
That kind of link would only be possible under the following conditions; 1. You would have to purchase the exact same list every time you went there. A different list would create a instance of you car there but no identifying list. 2. Noone else could purchase exactly the same list of items; An instance of the list being purchased without you car being there. At best there could be a probable link.
The other issue is that there are hundreds of different lists purchased every day and hundreds of different cars parked in the lot ever day which creates a huge mamy to many relationship. Trying to link lists to cars is almot impossible.
Who is to say you even went into the store as many Targets are in malls.
I think you are forgetting about in-store security cameras and face recognition software. They don't even have to match your face to a database. They only need to match the face captured on the parking lot cam along side your license plate to the face of the customer at the cash register.
Every now and then, a story pops up on Slashdot describing how one company or other is getting around browser security features to invade people's privacy. A while back the story was about "supercookies" that couldn't be deleted but would let some companies know whether you have visited their website before, etc. The blame is always directed squarely at the company doing the "exploiting".
I think the more important issue is the security problems in the browser itself, which enable these tactics to be employed. If large companies like Google are exploiting these vulnerabilities, then we can only assume that smaller scale but potentially much more malicious hackers are employing similar tricks. Companies like Google, when they do such things are pointing out serious vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. The problem won't go away just because big companies like Google voluntarily decide to stop exploiting browser vulnerabilities. The problem will only go away when the browsers (and possibly plugins) are fixed and patched so the exploits are impossible.
Yup. First-sale doctrine. A farmer can who whatever the heck he wants with the farm product. He already paid Monsanto for first-hand seed.
Ummmm, First Sale is a doctrine of copyright law, not patent law!
My son is highly allergic to eggs, which is in many vaccines.
Eggs? Do they come with bacon too?
You didn't seriously just try to say that if images of kids are devoid of artistic merit (meaning, in someone's opinion... eye of the beholder and all that), then those images are child porn, did you?
I think his list was meant to be conjunctive rather than disjunctive. (I.e. he is assuming the word "and" between his four points, not "or".) But I still agree that 4 shouldn't be in the list. There is no place for that kind of subjective judgement in legal definitions, especially those attached to laws which carry such harsh penalties.