False. When the system is effective, it will be well known among criminals. When it is well known, they will drive three miles, swap the plates out with the ones they picked up earlier that day, and be on their way, surely less than five or ten minutes after the theft. It will then be ineffective for any sensible purpose, and only useful for tracking law abiding citizens.
It's a wonder we bother having plates in the first place since they are completely ineffective at stoping crime or catching criminals. Didn't anyone notice that not a single person has ever been caught due to their plates?
Could be, but surely any semi-determined criminal only has to find a similar vehicle and have some plates made with their reg.no.
If plates with identical reg.no.s are seen in vastly different locations at nearly the same time, surely that will set off some alarms in and of itself.
Seems to me that this is yet another way for the police to keep tabs on people without getting off their asses.
Of course, isn't that the point? Making people get off their asses is expensive.
As long as it is used for congestion identification, and possibly tracking of stolen vehicles/people who have committed a crime and the police which to facilitate their capture. I cannot see a bad side to this.
Well, the main bad side is that it will be used for more than just the purposes you've laid out. You can put whatever laws or standards you want, but this system will be abused.
The other bad side is that the set of "people who have committed a crime" is equal to the set of all people. Even if you buy the argument that minor crimes tend to be given minor punishments, there is still the ability for abuse in the future. Remember, the whole point of modern government is to keep the people in the government from infringing upon those not in the government. This is done by distributing the power, mainly through voting and economics. But information is power too, and when you give that power to a certain group of people (in this case cops) corruption is inevitable. To put it more succinctly, information is power, and power corrupts.
So if a badguy shoots someone and takes their car how does this system keep the badguy from using the roads?
Well, once the car is reported missing I'm sure it will be recognized by the computers. But until then, it doesn't.
Or what if they steel the license plate from valid drivers while they sleep?
Again, won't help until the license plate is reported stolen.
This also won't stop terrorists from flying airplanes into buildings. And it won't stop date rape. And it won't keep people from cheating on their taxes. And it won't stop global warming.
This sytem is only for keeping track of law abiding (or at least those that attempt to be law abiding on some level) people.
In other words, all people. Everyone attempts to be law abiding on some level, because whenever they break a law they risk getting caught.
It's a hell of a lot easier to cancel a card than to prove that the $400+ retail purchase was fraudulent.
Have you ever done this? You don't have to prove anything. They have to prove that the charge is legitimate. It's really simple. You call your company and tell them your card was stolen.
All said it'll take you less time then you've spent bitching on slashdot, and a lot less time than you spend pulling out your ID every single time you make a purchase. Unless you're getting your credit card stolen once a week or something.
There's no defense for not having proper ID checks, especially when the purchase is over $15.
Sure there is. It's more expensive to check IDs properly than it is to just deal with the fraud.
If having 100% secure payment at any cost is necessary, then you shouldn't be accepting credit cards in the first place. Accept only cash.
I care if I have to spend time and effort out of my life because some stupid cashier didn't bother to perform basic security checks.
So don't lose your credit card. Is it that hard? If you lose your credit card or if it is stolen you have to spend time and effort already anyway. The only difference is whether or not the merchant loses money.
If they required a PIN, identity theft would go down, merchant losses would go down, heck, muggings would probably go down, but so may credit card companies' profits.
Huh? Why would card company profits go down but not merchant profits? After all, merchants want to make it as easy as possible to use your credit card too.
I'd wager a large portion of credit card fraud could be stopped if places would stop hiring illiterate 12 year olds at registers who can't even read, let alone compare signatures.
Of course, hiring anyone but illiterate 12 year olds at registers would cost more than the credit card fraud they'd stop.
The only thing that keeps massive fraud from occurring is the paper trail.
That's true for online purchases, but at the supermarket, the only paper trail is your signature (and possibly a security camera). And if you're going to use contactless credit cards without a signature, what's the point, really?
You look at the card, then you look at the signature on the back of the card, and if they don't match, you ask for ID. Sure, there are places that don't do this, but likewise there are stores which expect you to ring a bell to alert the cashier to come to the front and take your money (yes I've actually had this happen at a supermarket at 3 in the morning).
Inherently, if security is breached, it's most likely the stores own fault. But with this system there's not really anything that the credit card companies can point to to put the blame on the stores. Unless of course they require a signature and ID anyway, and just realize that stores aren't going to follow it since it defeats the purpose of a contactless card.
Except then you've given some people an extremely large incentive to throw some processing power at finding the private key. Perhaps an underground version of distributed.net's operation?
You could always use a different public/private keypair for each card. And there's no reason to release the public key(s) as long as you require a connection to the processing system for verification. Just send the encrypted data to the processing system.
This section is an exception to the grounds under which infringement may be alleged; it specifically excepts a consumer making a recording, and not a consumer recording and then distributing that recording or copies of that recording.
Oh my God, it's right there in front of you. "manufacture, importation, or distribution" It specifically excepts a consumer recording and then distributing that recording or copies of that recording, so long as that is done for noncommercial purposes and using AHRA media.
The ability of a consumer to record music from the radio for personal use is part of that oft-repeated term, 'fair use.'
It is also part of the Audio Home Recording Act.
Copying and redistributing music from the radio (or from any other source without permission of the copyright owner) constitutes infringement.
Your argument presupposes that the DMCA is wrong and the pre-DMCA laws were right. If that's how you feel, that the RIAA should be allowed to charge $15-20 for a CD that you can't even share with your friends over the internet, then your argument makes sense.
But if, on the other hand, you think that the laws we had before the DMCA were unjustified in the first place, then you can't place responsibility for the DMCA on people who broke those pre-DMCA laws. That would be like blaming free speech activists for the COPA.
If someone would sell me a real unprotected mp3. (Not a windows only spyware-required piece of shit.) available for download on a fast connection with guaranteed quality and a simple search/purchase/download mechanism I'd pay.
How much? At $0.99/song, I think a lot of artists are going to call that bluff within the next couple years.
Well, it depends. You could probably make at least $1/CD just selling them normally online. But if you let people make their own mixes, maybe you could get a little more. And you could add in sample tracks from local artists. You could make your own mixes. You could add in commentary tracks. Put in free software. It adds in a lot of power that you didn't have previously.
Slashdot Mirror
False. When the system is effective, it will be well known among criminals. When it is well known, they will drive three miles, swap the plates out with the ones they picked up earlier that day, and be on their way, surely less than five or ten minutes after the theft. It will then be ineffective for any sensible purpose, and only useful for tracking law abiding citizens.
It's a wonder we bother having plates in the first place since they are completely ineffective at stoping crime or catching criminals. Didn't anyone notice that not a single person has ever been caught due to their plates?
I've read it, and I don't remember that part. But as with most literature, you can't take everything 100% literally.
Could be, but surely any semi-determined criminal only has to find a similar vehicle and have some plates made with their reg.no.
If plates with identical reg.no.s are seen in vastly different locations at nearly the same time, surely that will set off some alarms in and of itself.
Seems to me that this is yet another way for the police to keep tabs on people without getting off their asses.
Of course, isn't that the point? Making people get off their asses is expensive.
However, like so many tools, it has both an intended good use and a possible misuse. Same as DeCSS, a crowbar, or any number of examples seen on /.
Actually, DeCSS has an intended illegal use and a possible legal one.
As long as it is used for congestion identification, and possibly tracking of stolen vehicles/people who have committed a crime and the police which to facilitate their capture. I cannot see a bad side to this.
Well, the main bad side is that it will be used for more than just the purposes you've laid out. You can put whatever laws or standards you want, but this system will be abused.
The other bad side is that the set of "people who have committed a crime" is equal to the set of all people. Even if you buy the argument that minor crimes tend to be given minor punishments, there is still the ability for abuse in the future. Remember, the whole point of modern government is to keep the people in the government from infringing upon those not in the government. This is done by distributing the power, mainly through voting and economics. But information is power too, and when you give that power to a certain group of people (in this case cops) corruption is inevitable. To put it more succinctly, information is power, and power corrupts.
So if a badguy shoots someone and takes their car how does this system keep the badguy from using the roads?
Well, once the car is reported missing I'm sure it will be recognized by the computers. But until then, it doesn't.
Or what if they steel the license plate from valid drivers while they sleep?
Again, won't help until the license plate is reported stolen.
This also won't stop terrorists from flying airplanes into buildings. And it won't stop date rape. And it won't keep people from cheating on their taxes. And it won't stop global warming.
This sytem is only for keeping track of law abiding (or at least those that attempt to be law abiding on some level) people.
In other words, all people. Everyone attempts to be law abiding on some level, because whenever they break a law they risk getting caught.
oops, you're right... duh...
It's a hell of a lot easier to cancel a card than to prove that the $400+ retail purchase was fraudulent.
Have you ever done this? You don't have to prove anything. They have to prove that the charge is legitimate. It's really simple. You call your company and tell them your card was stolen.
All said it'll take you less time then you've spent bitching on slashdot, and a lot less time than you spend pulling out your ID every single time you make a purchase. Unless you're getting your credit card stolen once a week or something.
There's no defense for not having proper ID checks, especially when the purchase is over $15.
Sure there is. It's more expensive to check IDs properly than it is to just deal with the fraud.
If having 100% secure payment at any cost is necessary, then you shouldn't be accepting credit cards in the first place. Accept only cash.
I care if I have to spend time and effort out of my life because some stupid cashier didn't bother to perform basic security checks.
So don't lose your credit card. Is it that hard? If you lose your credit card or if it is stolen you have to spend time and effort already anyway. The only difference is whether or not the merchant loses money.
Signed means "to make a sign upon; to mark with a sign."
So if someone wrote "Please Check ID" for their signature it would be valid, right?
and if it did, they could just wipe off "check ID" and write your name in their handwriting anyway.
You can't "just wipe off" something from the signature part of your credit card without seeing "VOID" show up.
If they required a PIN, identity theft would go down, merchant losses would go down, heck, muggings would probably go down, but so may credit card companies' profits.
Huh? Why would card company profits go down but not merchant profits? After all, merchants want to make it as easy as possible to use your credit card too.
I'd wager a large portion of credit card fraud could be stopped if places would stop hiring illiterate 12 year olds at registers who can't even read, let alone compare signatures.
Of course, hiring anyone but illiterate 12 year olds at registers would cost more than the credit card fraud they'd stop.
The only thing that keeps massive fraud from occurring is the paper trail.
That's true for online purchases, but at the supermarket, the only paper trail is your signature (and possibly a security camera). And if you're going to use contactless credit cards without a signature, what's the point, really?
You look at the card, then you look at the signature on the back of the card, and if they don't match, you ask for ID. Sure, there are places that don't do this, but likewise there are stores which expect you to ring a bell to alert the cashier to come to the front and take your money (yes I've actually had this happen at a supermarket at 3 in the morning).
Inherently, if security is breached, it's most likely the stores own fault. But with this system there's not really anything that the credit card companies can point to to put the blame on the stores. Unless of course they require a signature and ID anyway, and just realize that stores aren't going to follow it since it defeats the purpose of a contactless card.
Yeah but if your card is physically stolen, you know about it and can report it.
Except then you've given some people an extremely large incentive to throw some processing power at finding the private key. Perhaps an underground version of distributed.net's operation?
You could always use a different public/private keypair for each card. And there's no reason to release the public key(s) as long as you require a connection to the processing system for verification. Just send the encrypted data to the processing system.
Why do you care if that cashier's business gets screwed over? Chargebacks without a valid signature are going to be accepted every time.
Where?s the security?
The security is that little camera above you when you make your purchase combined with laws we have against theft.
This section is an exception to the grounds under which infringement may be alleged; it specifically excepts a consumer making a recording, and not a consumer recording and then distributing that recording or copies of that recording.
Oh my God, it's right there in front of you. "manufacture, importation, or distribution" It specifically excepts a consumer recording and then distributing that recording or copies of that recording, so long as that is done for noncommercial purposes and using AHRA media.
The ability of a consumer to record music from the radio for personal use is part of that oft-repeated term, 'fair use.'
It is also part of the Audio Home Recording Act.
Copying and redistributing music from the radio (or from any other source without permission of the copyright owner) constitutes infringement.
No it doesn't.
Your argument presupposes that the DMCA is wrong and the pre-DMCA laws were right. If that's how you feel, that the RIAA should be allowed to charge $15-20 for a CD that you can't even share with your friends over the internet, then your argument makes sense.
But if, on the other hand, you think that the laws we had before the DMCA were unjustified in the first place, then you can't place responsibility for the DMCA on people who broke those pre-DMCA laws. That would be like blaming free speech activists for the COPA.
If someone would sell me a real unprotected mp3. (Not a windows only spyware-required piece of shit.) available for download on a fast connection with guaranteed quality and a simple search/purchase/download mechanism I'd pay.
How much? At $0.99/song, I think a lot of artists are going to call that bluff within the next couple years.
The big music companies will never ever release in a format that you can share freely.
You mean like CD?
If you pay the $0.79/song and burn a CD, you can then rip an mp3 from that CD you just burned.
Well, it depends. You could probably make at least $1/CD just selling them normally online. But if you let people make their own mixes, maybe you could get a little more. And you could add in sample tracks from local artists. You could make your own mixes. You could add in commentary tracks. Put in free software. It adds in a lot of power that you didn't have previously.
So wait a second, does that mean I'm allowed to resell the CD? Under First Sale, I would think so. That would be pretty sweet.