Re:I emailed the author of that article
on
RFID Explained
·
· Score: 1
I was wrong, he did reply:
Once the government gets hold of info about you, it never leaves. Ever. You
could probably say the same thing about corporations as well. For me, I don't
like the idea of the government or any corporation knowing much about me.
Some knowledge is unavoidable. But I like my zone of privacy.
If you really don't mind being tracked every step, then why not allow me to
film you every minute of the day for a month (bathroom barred, of course)? Or
voluntarily wear a GPS device broadcasting your every location every minute?
That doesn't creep you out?
What if you were an innocent Arab living in the US? Prior to 9/11, no biggie.
But afterwards, we have our gov't tracking Arabs everywhere. What if the law
was passed to require them to wear RFID tags in their clothes? Or cars?
What if the men convicted in TX for gay sex were ordered to wear RFID tags
because they were sex offenders? The Supreme Court overturned that last week,
but what if they hadn't? What about prior to the overturning?
What if you're having an affair? Would you want RFID tags subpoenaed in a
divorce case?
What if you run a red light? Or speed? What if your car was busy detecting all
that? What if you could no longer jaywalk because the RFID tag in your shoe
would turn you in?
What if every time you walked past a storefront, the ad announced, "Hi Keith!
Buy the new Britney Spears CD! You liked the others!" Or, "Hi Keith! Ass
still hurting? Buy more hemorrhoid cream!" Or, "Hi Keith! Run out of condoms?
Buy more!" See Minority Report? Not so far off.
My point is, you may think you're OK now. But things change. The gov't
changes. Corporations change. Are you willing to assume that things will
never change, and that you'll ALWAYS be considered by EVERYONE as a
"law-abiding citizen"?
On top of that, think beyond yourself to all the other cases I hypothesized
above. Even if I'm not tracked personally, I don't want the gov't or corp's
tracking others.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. I hope you found them useful.
When the lunatic shows up at your door with a gun, remember to say "So what?"
That may be an extreme example of what could potentially happen, but how about some other issues that may come up.
Imagine selling a used computer on Ebay to a guy who just happens to be a police officer, looking to get a cheap system for his home. You state right up front on the auction that the system is sold "as-is", no returns and the system might work. Said buyer gets the system, plugs it in, and is royally pissed-off that the system doesn't work. Instead of heeding the "as-is" warning or using email to get in touch with you, he faxes EBay for your phone number, and now you're getting calls from the guy for tech support!
And then we have such auctions as "Ghost in a Jar". They're obviously just there to lure suckers, and if you fall for it, you pretty much deserve what you get. Let's say someone isn't so wise to it, and upon opening the jar, they don't get what they expect. They perhaps forge a fax or call their retired police officer friend to fax Ebay for your address, and now this lunatic's hammering at your door.
All of these examples sound preposterous and paranoid until the day you read about it happening in the news.
"[GM]-God keeps ignoring my petitions. WTF up with that?"
You have broken Commandment #5. You are hit for 112 points of lightning damage.
"There's like a 1 in 1000 chance of creating a character who's God-sensitive."
You concentrate on the glass of water and make it into wine! You gain 1 point in Miracles skill!
Petition: "JeezusFreek's using an exploit at loc 4502/3712 standing out on the lake, casting plague-bolt at us and we can't get to him! WTF?! BAN HIM!"
Petition: "Help! I'm stuck in a piramid wall at loc 1204/4602!" Reply: "That's a feature."
I emailed the author of that article
on
RFID Explained
·
· Score: 1
Maybe someone here can answer what I sent, since I'm not sure he'll reply:
Hi Scott. I just read your recent article on RFID tags, and I was wondering if you could help me out. While I understand that the potential of privacy loss with the use of RFID tags is certainly there, and while at first my knee-jerk reaction says, "Whoa! Hold on there!", I then take a step back and have to say, "so what?"
Here's my predicament. I once saw an article regarding RFID tags that was much like yours (regarding privacy loss, etc.), and forwarded it on to a friend, probably with a subject of "yikes!". My friend responded with a resounding, "So what? Why should I be afraid of them tracking that?" Honestly, I had no response, because I hadn't really thought it out before. In thinking more about it, really, why should I be concerned?
I'm a law abiding citizen, I pay my taxes and so-forth, so what kinds of things would a similar person be worried about? I don't care if I'm tracked where I go, as my destinations aren't questionable. I don't care who knows what I buy -- hey, if you want to know what kind of hemeroid cream I'm using, just ask, but why the heck would you *want* to know? So you can send me ads? Be my guest -- I filter spam and toss junk mail before I open it, but it's not so much that I start to panic when I read about RFID tags.
I guess I'd need an example that I could share with people so they could relate, since right now I'm sounding more like a conspiracy theorist. Are there any honest, little-paranoia-attached examples I could point out that might give someone like me pause?
Our mail server does not use any blacklists, which is a shame because we get quite a bit of spam. But we are a business and I cannot take the risk of a client email bouncing, especially if they are innocent and the blacklist is wrong.
Why not use SpamAssassin? I have the same situation here at work, and using SpamAssassin works like a champ. I use that along with Anomy. SpamAssassin scans and scores the mail as being possible spam.
I currently specify a score of 6+ as spam. Then that mail gets sent through an anomy script, which strips out any executable or virus-possible files (I tell people here to request zipped files if they want.exe attachements). It also scans the score of the message -- if it's 12+, it dumps the mail into a spam jail directory for three days, but no real person gets that mail unless it's a message they were expecting and never got.
Now all spam with a score of less-than 12 doesn't get to the recipent, but any with a score of 6-11 gets to the user with "***** SPAM *****" prepended to the subject, along with a body prefix stating what rules the mail "broke", then the original mail as an attachement. All of this is configurable, of course.
The fact that the last licensed engine it's supposedly using is the Unreal Tournament (not 2003) engine, it probably will need a remake by the time it's released, if that ever happens.
Bungie's Halo. Cool game? Oh yes. Released for the Macintosh first like Steve Jobs promised at MacWorld, causing Microsoft-based-OS gamers to squirm as they watched the Apple folks have all the fun? Nope. I remember staring in awe at the webcast of the MacWorld show a few years ago when Halo was announced, and was just a teensy bit jealous of Mac users when I saw what the game promised. It came through on the promises alright, all but one of course.
Verant's Sovereign. I sort-of recall this game being announced not long after Everquest was released. We were going to see an awesome display of massive-multiplayer RTS, all by the fine folks who made the legendary MMORPG, Everquest. Screenshots were released here and there, but news of its advancement slowly petered out. Finally this year -- I'd say at least four years later -- the game was finally announced as dead. Now that I think of it, this might have been a smart move.
The rest have already been mentioned, such as Nokia N-Gage, Daikatana's Ad Campaign, and Duke Nukem Forever. I don't need to go into details about those -- you know what they are.
I'm totally guessing here, but perhaps it's the same thing as with hot sauces. You have two different hot sauces -- let's say, Blair's After Death and Dave's Insanity Sauce. You feel the hot-sauce pain from the capsaicin in the sauces, and both have it, so why is one hotter than the other?
" Oh yeah, we're gonna hafta pirate the HELL outta THIS game!:) "
Seriously though, Lars and co. really were asking for that to happen when they pissed on a lot of peoples' parade. I'm sure you'll see this game up on Kazaa within hours of its release. Not that I condone that in any way.
Not that I'm saying this poor excuse for a game concept would even be worth the download. It seems awful campy/cheesy to me.
"maybe someone could make it a bit more interesting"
There are definitely caches that use riddles and the like. Some are very tricky and involve traveling to several destinations (not within walking distance). Others require a bit of research on the web or books to complete. One that comes to mind is Raiders of the Lost Geocache, oh and N'la Azar Kna Naa.
Yes, well said. In fact, I've often considered that using a GPS doesn't have to limit you to just Geocaching for fun. Why not other games associated with a GPS? For example, Garmin's Geko line of GPS's (although ugly, IMO) have integrated games included that have nothing to do with Geocaching. I'm sorry, but virtual 'Snake' seems kinda cool you gotta admit.
An example of a great Geocache (called a 'Virtual Geocache') that encourages visits to a park on already traveled paths is Garden in the Woods in my area. Nothing harmed at all there.
I've noticed the upswing in Geocaching popularity myself as well. On many of my Geocache visits, I've brought friends along who got a huge kick out of the whole thing and are now considering getting their own GPS's for the task (or with a map and compass, like that nutcase WaldenRun who's found over 800 caches).
I personally would much rather find caches located in the middle of nowhere, where it's not often people are trampling over precious groundcover. One of the caches I placed is in a rather huge container that weighed at least 80 lbs.. I lugged that sucker over two miles into the woods where it won't bother anyone or anything.
I realize that most paintball arenas are pretty bland, with basically just a bunch of trees and such, but occasionally you'll get a well-designed course, complete with overturned carriages, small wooden buildings, etc. I wonder if anyone's attempted to recreate one of their local paintball arenas and used it for practice. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper than wasting paintballs and paying time on the course if you were going to a tourney there or something.
" Not quite... The equivalent would be one of the adults in the stadium playing the sport suddenly being able to jump 30ft in the air and run 60mph. Someone DOSing the servers is more in line with what you describe- But someone using builtin features of the game?..."
Er...I say "not quite" to you, sir.
It's more along the lines of a streaker running across the field during the Superbowl. He's using built-in features, right? In any case, either he'd better hope he can jump 30ft in the air or run 60mph, because his ass is going to jail for that.
I don't work for or are affiliated with the company, but I do use DiscSox for my CD storage. They're a bit more fogriving on CD's than paper envelopes, and the rack's not half bad.
"I wandered the store turning devices on and off, frustrating a few customers who were shopping."
Dear Lord, this is how a person gets their kicks these days? All I can picture with that scene is some pimply faced dork standing by the home theatre section of the store, turning all the TV sets to Screen Savers as they giggle and snort in delight. Personally I hope he was just kidding about doing that, for his sake and the sake of the customers.
Slashdot Mirror
Er...that big-purple-cat-dino thing in the picture sure looks like he's smoking a joint.
Why bother?
That may be an extreme example of what could potentially happen, but how about some other issues that may come up.
Imagine selling a used computer on Ebay to a guy who just happens to be a police officer, looking to get a cheap system for his home. You state right up front on the auction that the system is sold "as-is", no returns and the system might work. Said buyer gets the system, plugs it in, and is royally pissed-off that the system doesn't work. Instead of heeding the "as-is" warning or using email to get in touch with you, he faxes EBay for your phone number, and now you're getting calls from the guy for tech support!
And then we have such auctions as "Ghost in a Jar". They're obviously just there to lure suckers, and if you fall for it, you pretty much deserve what you get. Let's say someone isn't so wise to it, and upon opening the jar, they don't get what they expect. They perhaps forge a fax or call their retired police officer friend to fax Ebay for your address, and now this lunatic's hammering at your door.
All of these examples sound preposterous and paranoid until the day you read about it happening in the news.
Why not use SpamAssassin? I have the same situation here at work, and using SpamAssassin works like a champ. I use that along with Anomy. SpamAssassin scans and scores the mail as being possible spam.
I currently specify a score of 6+ as spam. Then that mail gets sent through an anomy script, which strips out any executable or virus-possible files (I tell people here to request zipped files if they want .exe attachements). It also scans the score of the message -- if it's 12+, it dumps the mail into a spam jail directory for three days, but no real person gets that mail unless it's a message they were expecting and never got.
Now all spam with a score of less-than 12 doesn't get to the recipent, but any with a score of 6-11 gets to the user with "***** SPAM *****" prepended to the subject, along with a body prefix stating what rules the mail "broke", then the original mail as an attachement. All of this is configurable, of course.
And the system runs on AC and DC power. So tell me again, why the heck wouldn't you just get a cheapy laptop?
I'd live to finally see the ability for an MS filesystem to allow for true symbolic links.
The fact that the last licensed engine it's supposedly using is the Unreal Tournament (not 2003) engine, it probably will need a remake by the time it's released, if that ever happens.
- Bungie's Halo. Cool game? Oh yes. Released for the Macintosh first like Steve Jobs promised at MacWorld, causing Microsoft-based-OS gamers to squirm as they watched the Apple folks have all the fun? Nope. I remember staring in awe at the webcast of the MacWorld show a few years ago when Halo was announced, and was just a teensy bit jealous of Mac users when I saw what the game promised. It came through on the promises alright, all but one of course.
- Verant's Sovereign. I sort-of recall this game being announced not long after Everquest was released. We were going to see an awesome display of massive-multiplayer RTS, all by the fine folks who made the legendary MMORPG, Everquest. Screenshots were released here and there, but news of its advancement slowly petered out. Finally this year -- I'd say at least four years later -- the game was finally announced as dead. Now that I think of it, this might have been a smart move.
The rest have already been mentioned, such as Nokia N-Gage, Daikatana's Ad Campaign, and Duke Nukem Forever. I don't need to go into details about those -- you know what they are.I'm totally guessing here, but perhaps it's the same thing as with hot sauces. You have two different hot sauces -- let's say, Blair's After Death and Dave's Insanity Sauce. You feel the hot-sauce pain from the capsaicin in the sauces, and both have it, so why is one hotter than the other?
Not to mention, you gotta love the slight dig at Michael Moore's Oscar speech ("Shame on you! Shame on you!").
Seriously though, Lars and co. really were asking for that to happen when they pissed on a lot of peoples' parade. I'm sure you'll see this game up on Kazaa within hours of its release. Not that I condone that in any way.
Not that I'm saying this poor excuse for a game concept would even be worth the download. It seems awful campy/cheesy to me.
But virual snake in a car...now we're talkin'!
There are definitely caches that use riddles and the like. Some are very tricky and involve traveling to several destinations (not within walking distance). Others require a bit of research on the web or books to complete. One that comes to mind is Raiders of the Lost Geocache, oh and N'la Azar Kna Naa.
This has happened. Read the log. And this one's not alone.
An example of a great Geocache (called a 'Virtual Geocache') that encourages visits to a park on already traveled paths is Garden in the Woods in my area. Nothing harmed at all there.
I personally would much rather find caches located in the middle of nowhere, where it's not often people are trampling over precious groundcover. One of the caches I placed is in a rather huge container that weighed at least 80 lbs.. I lugged that sucker over two miles into the woods where it won't bother anyone or anything.
Also, what's next -- banning letterboxing?
I realize that most paintball arenas are pretty bland, with basically just a bunch of trees and such, but occasionally you'll get a well-designed course, complete with overturned carriages, small wooden buildings, etc. I wonder if anyone's attempted to recreate one of their local paintball arenas and used it for practice. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper than wasting paintballs and paying time on the course if you were going to a tourney there or something.
Er...I say "not quite" to you, sir.
It's more along the lines of a streaker running across the field during the Superbowl. He's using built-in features, right? In any case, either he'd better hope he can jump 30ft in the air or run 60mph, because his ass is going to jail for that.
It sure seems both the attacker and the attackee are enjoying this (taken from the article) a bit too much.
I don't work for or are affiliated with the company, but I do use DiscSox for my CD storage. They're a bit more fogriving on CD's than paper envelopes, and the rack's not half bad.
Dear Lord, this is how a person gets their kicks these days? All I can picture with that scene is some pimply faced dork standing by the home theatre section of the store, turning all the TV sets to Screen Savers as they giggle and snort in delight. Personally I hope he was just kidding about doing that, for his sake and the sake of the customers.
I saw someone else mention this too, and I don't understand why you'd say that. They recreated the stars in the "first" matrix, so why not the 2nd?