Ok, I think we should all stop complaining and whining and put our money where our mouths are. The RIAA and MPAA have a ton of money to throw at these guys, but there's one thing they want more than money; and that's re-election. Why? It means more money in the end. Now I have an idea on how to do this, and I think we can fairly easily make it work. Please at least hear me out if you care enough to have read this far:
A small lobbying group forms to represent the interests of the consumer against the major media companies and their representatives (RIAA/MPAA/etc). Everyone who can sends in at least $10 or so by check, money order, cash, whatever. Assuming we get no other funding and no one sends more than $10, we should end up with roughly $1million in total. (assuming not even half of the slashdot readers send in). Obviously, this is nothing compared to the 60 and 70 million dollars that the entertainment industry puts in the pockets of politicians, so we take a more targeted approach. We pick the most vocal ally of anti-consumer/pro-entertainment industry legislation (offhand, I'd say Hollings) and target their constituents with ads all over the TV and radio. Every dirty trick and rotten bill he puts forth, we sensationalize the hell out of it, then put it right in front of the people deciding whether they're re-elected. ("Your senator wants to make sure you can't even listen to your own CD on your computer!".. "Your senator wants to put you in JAIL for taping your favorite TV show!") We make an example out of 1 or 2 and the rest start wondering if they're next. They then weaken or withdraw their support for the entertainment industry and we start getting what we want for a change.
That's my basic idea, if anyone wants to refine it, post a reply. This is a real way we can get something done for a change, and a small amount of money put forth isn't going to kill any of us. Even if it fails completely, you're out $10; so what? If it succeeds, you'll have been a part of something great. Anyone feel like putting together a full proposal with a timetable and tangeable steps at putting this in place? Feel free to post. This isn't just a US problem, the world needs to wake up from this dream that a corrupt entertainment industry can have its problems solved by legislating away rights supposedly guarenteed to us. It's time we did something about it.
This bill doesn't do much of anything to assure us of privacy. If anything, it ensures that spammers and the like have the legal rights to track us. This bill basically divides all information into two categories (personal/important and non-personal/unimportant) and sets an opt-in for the 'important' information while not even guaranteeing an opt-out for what it considers 'unimportant'.
Of course you're asking yourself, "what's he mean unimportant?" Glad you asked. Your name, address, record of any and all purchases, etc.; important, personal information you're probably thinking. Wrong. Don't feel bad, I made the same mistake at first. Then I looked at who was pushing this thing (Fritz Hollings (SSSCA/DMCA/etc)) and I smacked my head and said, "oh, now I get it." The only information spammers care about is the information NOT protected by this bill.
Gee, I have an idea, let's forward all spam email to Fritz Hollings' email address and see how he likes his own medicine. It amazes me that the citizens of South Carolina would allow such an anti-freedom, anti-constitution, anti-consumer, anti-individual, pro-corporation, pro-media (christ, he's referred to as the "Senator from Disney) to continue representing them. I somehow doubt that the majority of the citizens of South Carolina would vote for most of what he pushes if they knew what he was pushing.
I say we give into Hollings. I mean, all he wants is lots of money, a large plantation, and plenty of people he can humiliate and beat down at will. Can't we get that for him so he'll go away? To me, it's absolutely insane that such a person is allowed to remain in office. We should have some sort of monthly review board for every member of Congress so that when they completely abandon their constituents, they can be removed from office quickly and quietly, making way for a human being with a heat that pumps blood instead of oil.
If I'm not mistaken, isn't quantum tunneling extremely inefficient? I've seen it used to carry an audio signal "faster than light" (according to those conducting the experiments) but the signal degredation was pretty bad due to the fact that on the quantum level, everything is a simple matter of chance. Some of the particles being manipulated behave as expected, and many more do not.
The fact that they haven't even begun to actually try cooling anything suggests to me that this is this week's vaporware and next week's laughware.
My sig? Yes. If everything I am can be explained by this theory, then I am fundamentally no different from a rock or a star, and therefore cannot be held accountable for anything I do as I'm simply acting according to the laws of physics. If this is the case, than every little thing I do for the rest of my life can be predicted with no possible way for me to change it. Free will is meaningless, morality is useless, and I just wanna get laid.
In regards to the omnipresent quest for attention, I agree. However, that being said, I shall explain why this is in fact a problem.
The majority of people do not look at the consequences of policy changes (be they corporate or government) with regards to privacy. Much of the time, most people aren't aware of the fact that a policy change is being made. Ask 100 people on the streets of NYC what the DMCA is and I'll bet that less than 20 will answer with a remotely correct response. Ask what the SSSCA was and you're not likely to find 5.
Now let's look at Yahoo. Most of those reading slashdot know what Yahoo did. Most of us who read slashdot have at least some scrap of cognitive capacity and perhaps a few even read through most of the daily news here and at other websites. We knew what Yahoo was up to long before their policy changes went into affect. However - a great many people do not keep up with the news, nor do they read the little announcements on the yahoo pages. For these folks (probably a majority), they have no clue of the policy changes at Yahoo, and didn't have the common sense to not give real information to Yahoo. Thus, we have sheep going along with the flow while those "in the know" take full advantage of them at every turn. There is, in fact, something that is not working; and it's a combination of widespread apathy and big-wig sneakiness. Granted, no one expects large corporations to play nicely, but to disregard the choices of the general public because it doesn't fit your business model is absolutely wrong. There is a common misconception amoung large businesses that the public exists to serve the needs of the corporation, when it is of course, the other way around. One also sees this in government. Nowhere is this more identifiable than in the entertainment industry, where consumers are no longer enticed, they are coralled. When you combine this with the general apathy we see so much of these days, we see a system in which the government and large corporations "pull the wool over the eyes" of people who just plain don't give a shit.
Then you have us - the few who do care about ourselves and others, yet who exist in too small numbers to actually accomplish much. While our rights and freedoms are stripped away at an alarming rate by our government, our freedom of choice and quality of service is reduced to a dream while we, ourselves are reduced to a number by large corporations. We few who recognize this are helpless to defend ourselves. If we don't like what Yahoo is doing, we can certainly switch to another service; one with less features and more problems. You see 1000.com's to choose from and you believe that those using Yahoo.com have made a choice. I see 1000 services, each less useful and more invasive than the last. It's not a choice, it's a lack of options. In the automotive industry, I have a choice; Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, etc. In the web services industry, I have Yahoo (underhanded, dirty tactics, spam-friendly), Hotmail (M$, poor security, restricted services, charges for something slightly better), and it gets even better from here.
For those about to complain that I want everything for free and am just another low-life freeloading Linux user, I will say this - I have no problem paying a reasonable price for a high quality good or service. I have every problem paying a high price for what could be dirt cheap if it weren't run by a bunch of money-grubbing gluttons. I just bought Red Hat Linux box set, and am about to order Star Office. These are both quality products offered at reasonable prices. $400+ for an operating system that causes more headaches than a radiation leak and crashes more often than a rich suburban drunken speed-freak is not reasonable.
Of all the things I'd like to say in an infinitesimally small period of time as I sit here shaking my head, the best I can come up with is... wow.
Ok, now let's try and take this slowly here, one by one; deep breaths. Stand back folks, this comment is about to be disassembled, burned, stomped on, crumpled up, and tossed into a fiery trashcan-hell which our tiny human minds cannot begin to fathom.
"I can't help but wonder what exactly you think you're giving up by having a biometric print on your driver's license, instead of a 9-digit number."
Well first of all, I'd like to mention that the Social Security Act of 1935, which was the act under which the social security number was created, never gave any authority for this number to ever be used for identification. Secondly, on each social security card for the first few decades they were issued, there were two things printed that have since been removed. Specifically, it was printed that the number was "Not for Identification Purposes" and that you should never give the number out to anyone except an official from the Social Security Administration. Why? Because the lawmakers of the time recognized the value in not having each person reduced to a number. I have a problem with the number being used anywhere except where it is specifically needed for the SSA, especially on a license. Here is why: suppose you are stopped for a traffic offense, or at a police checkpoint (meaning you've done nothing wrong, yet are still stopped). Now, the officer is going to ask you for your license. Assuming the license has your SSN (social security number), this violates the 1974 Privacy Act. This act "states that no person will be denied service by a government agency for failure to disclose their SSN, except for some exceptions. In addition, it states that a government agency which does request the SSN must disclose whether it be voluntary or obligatory, and if it is obligatory, what law requires it, and what use will be made of it." Therefore, if the officer wants my SSN, he best begin by answering some of my questions. Such as, "Is it really necessary?", and "Exactly which law and/or statue gives you the authority to request my SSN?", and "What exactly will you be doing with my SSN officer?" As (s)he is an official of the federal, state, or local law enforcement agency, he is bound by the law, yet if I were to ask for the information to which I am, under the law, entitled, I doubt I'd get an answer I'd like, if any at all. But I digress.
So your question was what do we lose? Well, we are reduced to nothing more than an entry in a database. (ie. I'm no longer John Smith, I'm now Citizen #192,114,983) What is the problem with this you ask? It's dehumanizing. I, for one, am not a 'zombie'. I am a human being, and expect and demand to be treated as such; especially by my government. To have myself and my life reduced to a small pile of information is both degrading and insulting. Since that idea doesn't bother you, why not submit to having a barcode tattood on your forehead? If the idea of a barcode on your forehead bothers you, perhaps you should ask yourself why.
"Do you honestly think that by having the (assumed) Encrypted Permutation of the measurements of the veins in your eye on the DMV computer system, that you'll suddenly be some Arnold Schwarzenegger'd character fleeing the Borg Uberpolice in some post-armageddon techno-dictatorship? "
Suddenly? No. But I think that even the most totalitarian regime had to start somewhere, and reducing all citizens to numbers, then tracking their every move seems like a good start. Legitimizing the practice by legislating it keeps the revolution at bay until everyone gets a bit more used to the idea. Uberpolice you ask? Well, when the police can tell me where I was on the morning of April 3, 2001, what I had for breakfast, where I went, what I did, if I bought a paper of withdrew money from an ATM, bounced a check, paid my bills, etc, then I say to you, I live in a police state from which there is no escape. Do I care if the DMV of NJ knows what my eye looks like? Not in the least bit. But when they want to tie in every database from every federal and state agency to compile a list of everything I do every minute of every day, then I say the DMV gets my retinal scan when they autopsy my cold dead body. To hell with any nation or government which actively polices it's own citizens. Motto of the great State of New Hampshire: Live Free or Die.
"Lets face it...there are some areas where privacy is important (medical records, for example)...but we already have LAWS against unauthorized access to said materials. "
Let's be clear about one thing: Privacy is important in ALL areas. Let's ask a simple question, would you have a problem with your name, telephone number, address, children's names and ages, your past sexual history, your purchasing habits, daily life, reading habits, religion, and other such information being collected and stored by corporations and the government for whatever use they see fit? (From marketing by companies, to searches by police of your house and property because you fit the profile of someone 'likely to commit a crime'. (See also: racial profiling) The list of possibilities for use of information that you're willing to give up is staggering. What worries me isn't so much what I can think of in terms of misuse, it's all the things I can't think of right now. Do you think that the authors of the DMCA ever imagined a scientific research paper wouldn't be published because of legal threats stemming from the DMCA?
"Isn't this the whole debate with the SSSCA or whatever it's called now? That we're looking to legislate things that are ALREADY ILLEGAL?"
Boy, that's just funny; that's what that is. The CBDTPA (formerly the SSSCA) would force every single piece of software or hardware produced after the bill is enacted into law to have embedded technologies that conform to government-mandated standards to eliminate unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials. That's what it does on it's face, now let's look at the consequences. All open source software would then need to be pretty much re-written. Everything from the Windows Media Player to the 'cp' command in future editions of *nix's/Linux would have to have standards-compliant code (with all its bugs and bloat) making many perfectly legal activities impossible. Forget making backups of your computers at that point. Assuming they contain software with the 'dont copy' bit, it isn't going to work. Forget making a mix CD from the CD's you bought last week, it's not going to work. These are all 'fair use' activities and perfectly legal. They'll still be legal, they just won't be possible, as you'd have to circumvent the copy-protection technology (which is illegal) to do it.
Think of it this way: right now, it's perfectly legal for you to walk to the house facing yours. It's a right recognized by everyone, and you do so frequently. Last week, a paved road (ie. 'street') was put in between your house and the one facing yours. It's still legal to go there, but now you must cross this street, so you do. Now, Senator Hollings wants to pass a bill saying it's perfectly legal to visit the house facing yours, but you may not cross the street to get there. (no jokes about flying above, tunneling under, etc please). So let's think about this for a moment, it's legal to visit the house, it's just that the only way to get there is illegal. The street isn't necessary, travel was fine before it was paved, but you cannot cross it just the same.
For those who think "hey, the cp command was around before this bill, it's grandfathered, right?" Right, until you want to release the next version of the software. FreeBSD 5.0 would probably be ok, but FreeBSD 6.0 would probably be legally forced to re-write anything capable of copying or displaying any digital content with standards-compliant code added. Then you get to re-write just about every application in existence when you want to release the next version, and now your hardware will cost a bit more thanks to the R&D for the embedded technology and added cost of making the product work right with it. Those who develop software in their free time should be screaming about this. Anyone who's ever written even a simple text editor should realize that if they wrote it post CBDTPA, it would have to comply with government standards on copy protection. (Those who don't write software, please don't chime in here, you don't know what you're talking about.)
"It's a different key for the same lock."
It's a universal key. Someone cracks it, they have everything. Right now, they need some luck along with your SSN, etc. Using a single key for everything is no different than using one password for everything. Think about it, if you use a 17 character password with numbers, upper/lower-case letters, symbols, (a really good password) for everything, then you're in trouble if anyone gets ahold of it. Doesn't matter how good it is, someone will break it. If it takes 20 years for someone to break it, they will, and when they do, your entire life belongs to them. You can say there's no way, and I'll just smile and nod and point you to the MPAA, who said CSS would never be cracked. It's not the biometrics that's a problem, it's the authentication that can be cracked, the databases that can be cracked, etc.
"Convicted sex offenders should be branded across the forehead"
What a great idea. Let's take a human being and burn their head with a hot plate of iron so they'll be ridiculed and beaten the rest of their lives. But you know what? I seem to remember some crazy guys a while back who wrote something to the effect that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Gee, those silly creators of our country, what were they thinking?
Ok, now that we're done with the sarcasm, let's think about this for a moment. first off, go read a book called The Scarlet Letter. Secondly, this most certainly qualifies as "cruel and unusual punishment". I'm one who's all for the rights of the victims. TRUST ME when I say I know first hand exactly what it feels like to have someone you love fall victim to a 'sex offender'. Your first instinct is to kill them; at least mine was. Unfortunately, we don't have the tools necessary to ensure this type of thing never happens in our society, but what we do have is a fairly good criminal justice system, which, while not perfect, is constantly being reviewed and changed to better serve the public. Branding someone's forehead does nothing to ensure that they're able to become productive citizens. Megan's law, while nice on paper and hard to argue with ("you don't want a law that protects people?") does nothing to get a person the help they need. Instead, putting someone out like that makes them feel isolated and hated. Indeed, it has brought ruin to many convicted offenders' lives. When someone is unable to live a normal life, they eventually start looking for the next best thing, which might put your wife or kids in danger. I have no problem with a sex offender being fairly heavily monitored by law enforcement, but once they've served their time, they ought be allowed to live some sort of life.
""DO NOT TRUST WITH YOUR 6-YEAR OLDS!" mark on their record, available to law enforcement and grade school HR departments"
We have this, it is known as a criminal record. Criminal records are (with the exception of children) a matter of public record. If a school does not do a criminal record check on its employees, they have a problem in their administration.
"Likewise, "Known Terrorist" or "Most Wanted" notices are GOOD THINGS for airport checkin personel to see. ""That you have AIDS, or that you're secretly dressing in women's panties, are secrets best kept to yourself. That you have served twenty years for deflowering an Alterboy or have trained in an Al Qaida camp should be open to the world. And I, for one, don't have a problem with that."
This is the way things are, and if you're happy, why did you post? AIDS positive tests are a matter of medical records, which are regulated by law. That you dress in women's panties is not tracked by anyone (well, maybe spam companies) and is also usually private. If you had sex with a child, you have a criminal record, which can be checked. If you are a well-known terrorist, you are on the State Department's terrorist watch list.
You're taking the average over the RC5-64 project, which has been over 1600 days, meaning you're looking at the computing power available to this particular project, some 600 - 700 days ago or so.
Use my suggestion to add in the seti@home users' computational power, then add in a rough estimate of net users gained over the life of the project, then apply moore's law to compute the addition of faster cpus, and you'll be able to calculate the most likely time for completion (assuming say, 60% keyspace searched, which takes the average 1/2 and ads 10% for overhead). If you can do the math on that one, you're a better man (or woman) than I, but I'll bet you it'd be MUCH sooner than you think to complete the project. Assume it should take roughly 10 years (just for argument's sake) your average computational power would lie I believe somewhere around the 7th or 8th year. I could be a bit off on this, it's 2am and I've been up about 28 hours now. I think I need sleepy time.
"Citizen #31842785 purchased one gallon of milk, one bottle of aspirin, and.. oh wait, a pornographic magazine! Let's get the warrant quickly so we can protect this citizen's neighbors from his deviant activities. While we're waiting for the warrant, let's bug his phones, interogate his lawyer, and have his house searched so he can't expose anyone else to his sick mind while we're waiting for the warrant so we can bring him to the Thought Purification Center. You know, we really shouldn't need a warrant for this, it's for the good of the nation."
All events in the preceeding story are fictional, until we can get around this ridiculous Bill of Rights with a new law entitled, "The Patriotic, Being Nice, Love, Protection, Good Feelings Act." (or any other name that sounds too warm and fuzzy to vote against.)
(mod me down if you like, but this is exactly what some people would like to happen. 1984 isn't just a book any more.)
Ok, now all you folks staring at the pretty screensaver really ought to be cracking keys for Distributed.net.
If everyone just jumped on RC5, we'd have the 128-bit key done by now, and ET would still be there waiting for us. If you're going to talk to aliens, shouldn't you at least let them know your computer can brute force a 128-bit encrypted RC5 key? If that doesn't impress them, nothing will. Once they see that, they'll probably show us the secrets of interstellar travel, and eternal life, things like that. But only if we crack keys first, so go download the Dnetc client and get cracking!
After sitting on the phone for over two hours with D-link, talking to three different people (including a supervisor), explaining that I set up wireless routers several times a week for a living, and that this defective part needs to be RMA'd, I was told they'd have a tech call me back. One would think that RMA'ing an obviously defective product would be cheaper for the company than letting me sit on the phone with someone who has a double-digit IQ, only to have a "tech" call me back at a later time, when they'll end up having to RMA it anyway.
In any event, my boss has already decided we're using Linksys from now on, and it's been 3 business days without a call back from this mysterious "tech". Needless to say, I had no problem understanding where this article was coming from.
The one bright spot in all this was the fact that I spent two hours on wednesday doing nothing but chit chatting on the telephone, sitting on my arse while getting paid.
If I recall correctly, aren't there some quarter million people who read/. daily? Many of us are computer professionals and would have no problem (at least from a financial standpoint) giving a couple hundred dollars a year or so to a responsible group who could organize and push forward with lobbying to our benefit. Assuming less one in twenty gave an average $100, you could be looking at over $1,000,000 ($100 * 10,000 people) per year. I should think this would be plenty for a small staff to maintain a single focal point where everyone concerned about their rights can keep up to date and can be informed about how to help with an organized fight to ensure our continued freedoms.
As corny as that sounds, look at what we're facing. The DMCA, the SSSCA, they exist for one reason: money. Being elected is a great way to get rich quickly, so these people will do anything they have to to ensure they're re-elected. Attacking people like Hollings with a million dollar+ annual budget would certainly make a point. The Senator from Disney would have one heck of a time getting elected if negative adds were running non-stop for the last few weeks before the next election. When you can take down the big boys, the small fish learn quickly to sit down and shut up, and do as they're told.
With all the high tech people that are out of work right now, I'm sure some must be reading this who have some sort of campaign/government experience who can set this up. Show me a responsible, organized effort to put a PAC together and I'll not only join and donate, I'll do everything I can to make sure other people do as well.
Ahh yes, my latest USA rant gets a response! And an intelligent one at that (as opposed to something like "you're gay" or "death to America".) Ok, here we go.
Yes, the US dropped food... and followed up by dropping anti-personnel bombs which looked just like the food packets. (After convincing the Pakistan to close it borders and prevent the UN and Red Cross food shipments which were really feeding Afghanistan.)
Followed up? No, we'd been dropping those for some time. This was a simple case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. You want to make food packets easy to see so locals can get right to them. You want to make bombs easy to see so that any unexploded ordinance is avoided. The problem is that the folks who made up the food packets ended up using a packaging which was similar in color and vaguely similar in shape to the bombs. The people who made the bombs != the people who made the food. Unless you're Steven Segal, you aren't making bombs during the day and veil during the evening. Also take into account that the food would have been handled by different people, flown on different planes, and dropped in different areas by different crews. The two packages probably were never seen near one another before they hit the ground in Afghanistan. It's unfortunate, but it did happen. It was a mistake, we're sorry. All better? Yes, the US freed the Afghanistani people from the Taliban... and left them to the tender mercies of the Warlords who were in charge before. Pashtuns, who happen to be the ethnic group the Taliban came from, are being killed in the street because of their accents -- it is assumed that Pashtun=Taliban.
Left them? Ok, now correct me if I'm wrong, but... we're still in Afghanistan. Not only that, but we've helped put the new unified government in place, (even though we didn't set out to build the country again), and helped hammer out agreements for everything from peacekeeping troops, to funraisers, to bringing books to the afghan children so they could actually learn something in school. As for the people killing one another, hey, what can I say? They've been killing one another for hundreds of years, are we to blame for that too? We're being bounced around like a pinball and used in so many ways we lost count when all we want to do is wipe out taliban leaders, and get Al Qaida on the run (or dead, either way). We freed the people, don't blame us for what they choose to do with their freedom. We're like the world's whipping boy. When someone does something to someone else, everyone just yells, "blame the Americans."
Yes, the US is housing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. In cages most of the rest of the world wouldn't use to house dogs. They have spent the last 4? 5? months in custody without charge, without knowing where on the planet they are, and knowing that they are very likely to be 'tried' in a closed military court with no defence and sentenced to death.
Cages? Dogs? They're called cells. They are given plenty of food each day, and we're even catering to their religious meal requirments. We could hand them a big plate of pork and say "eat, don't eat, I don't give a shit", but we found food that wouldn't violate their religious beliefs and served it to them. When they decided not to eat that, and a few became de-hydrated or malnourished, we hooked them up to IV's to make sure they were ok. We've given them medical care, beds, blankets, food to their liking, and time each day to walk around outside. Let me ask you this, how were the American prisoners in Somalia treated? Let me answer that for you, they were tortured, murdered, stripped naked, then dragged through the streets. How about in Afghanistan? Well, a group of folks watched as a Predator drone got footage of a US soldier who was wounded being led away by Al Qaida soldiers, then shot in the back of the head. So how dare you even begin to question our treatment of these prisoners. As for the military tribunals, it's already been stated that only the upper leadership of Al Qaida would qualify for that little honor. Seeing as virtually all of the prisoners at Gitmo are simple foot soldiers, they'll probably be screened for intelligence, and eventually deported unless we have solid evidence against them. In any event, they're alive and being treated well, which is MUCH more mercy than they've ever shown our troops. Have you ever bothered to find how long some of these people have been in jail? Some of them have been on Death Row for more than 10 years. How would you deal with ten years of 'maybe next week, they'll kill me'? And let's not mention the number of Death-Row inmates who were convicted on dubious evidence, or the number who have been proved innocent when better evidence came to light... often too late.
You've just proved my point - anyone sentenced to death in the US has a VERY easy appeal process. The first is automatic, meaning they not only have to be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt by 12 people, 24 people must firmly believe that there's no other way it went down. The person can then spend in some cases the next twenty years going on and on with appeals. They're given every possible opportunity to prove their innocence. Someone given life in prison doesn't get that automatic appeal, and therefore has less of a chance to proce their innocence. To say they were convicted on "dubious" evidence is vague and inaccurate. It's hard finding 24 people who agree what color the sky is, so I think you can rest assured that when 24 people unanimously agree that this person comitted the crime without any reasonable doubt, and that they committed it in such a way as to warrent a death sentence, it wasn't just an on-the-fly 'yeah whatever' kind of thing. As for those proven innocent later on? I hate to tell you, but you'll find that anywhere in the world. No justice system is perfect, but when we put someone to death, we're damned sure we're not putting an innocent person to death. When it's discovered that a mistake was made, I think we're all saddened, but nothing is perfect, and you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. As for the inmate sitting in his cell pondering his upcoming death, I think it's fair considering that someone's wife, or someone's mother will never get to see that person again because your inmate took it upon themself to end their life. As far as I'm concerned, if you shoot a cop in cold blood, whatever sentence you're given isn't punishment enough, and if you don't want to be put to death, don't shoot the cop. This mentality that people should be given all this extra care and love is ridiculous. If you can't do the time (or sit in the chair) don't do the crime. All these criminals' rights people seem to have forgotten that the people they're fighting so hard for are the ones who shoot innocent people, rape kids, run over people with their car, murder their kids/parents/spouse, get young kids hooked on drugs, and all sorts of other things. They deserve the most basic rights, nothing more. They cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. I think two, three, four trials by jury is more than 'due' process. I don't assume that every defendant is guilty, quite the contrary. But when 12 people are convinced, then 24 are convinced, then 36, etc, then I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, regardless of whether I was there or not to see them committ the crime. The death penalty makes a great deterrant. It doesn't stop anyone from comitting a crime, but it sure as hell cuts down on the repeat offenders.:) Go give Ted Bundy a hug, he needs some love. While you're at it, give all those parents their daughters... you know, the ones he murdered? Well, maybe an International Police Force and corresponding International Court of Justice would take some of this unwanted pressure off, eh? Such a pity that the number one veto state in the UN Security Council (in charge of that Police Force) is the USA. Such a pity that the main obstacle to the foundation of the Court of Justice was and is... USA. The reason given was that Americans might be tried for War Crimes. Is the USA 'above the Law'? Because that is what your goverment is arguing.
Above the law? No. But our citizens have a Constitutional right to be tried by a jury of their peers, something an international court might not respect. Our government has a responsibility to ensure the rights of its citizens, and I therefore support them fully here. Now, if a US president ordered the systematic slaughter of a race/group, or was ordering and/or causing the intentional murder of innocent civilians on a mass scale (ie genocide) then I'd be the first person calling for him/her to be tried in the Hague. But you're not about to take a US pilot who makes a mistake and make an example out of him just because you're pissed at us and want to show us up to the world. We'll try our own citizens, thank you. If you'd like to put together a nice little sideshow for one another, feel free, but we'll have no part in it; especially not when we ARE the international police force. Here's an idea. Ask yourself this: What would someone have to do to make me hate them so much that I would willingly and happily kill myself if it meant they might suffer or die.
That's the classic blame-the-victim mentality. "Well Gloria, you must have done something very terrible to make Bill beat the shit out of you like that. What did you do to make him so mad?" You know, we get bitched at for giving aid to Israel. Guess what, we give aid to a large portion of the world. Finding a country we give aid to is about as easy as finding one we don't give aid to. As I said before, the Middle Eastern countries that bitch when we support something they don't like are awefully quiet when we hand them that nice fat check for their oil. You can't have it both ways, we either help everyone who needs help, or we help no one. Pick one. You also failed to point out the fact that the people with the bombs strapped to their chests aren't attacking the so-called oppressers. I might begin to have some sort of sympathy for someone who's desperate and scared and goes after the person shooting at them, their friends, their family. But they aren't. The 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001 weren't soldiers oppressing a people. They were office workers, accountants, lawyers, bankers, firemen, policemen, and they were thousands of miles from the countries the attackers came from. The bombers in Israel aren't attacking military outposts, they're planned and executing attacks against people going to work, or people hanging out at a nightclub. They're murdering people who just want to buy groceries at the market, or who want to take a trip to a holy site. The suicide bombers aren't even killing people who are armed. They're killing children in the streets, and civilians on buses. They aren't defending anything, they're murdering innocent people. So your blame-the-victim mentality just falls to pieces in light of the reality of the attacks. Your government has made itself the new Roman Empire, straddling the world. Read a history of the Roman Empire sometime, and find out why so many people around the world are getting scared
The Roman Empire? We don't conquer; we could - but we choose not to. We could occupy afghanistan, or Iraq, or virtually any other country we choose to (aside from perhaps china, too many damn people:P, or russia... too big and too cold, or australia... too much beer). We don't want to run the world, and we don't want to be the world's hall monitor. But every time something happens (WWII, gulf war, phillipines, etc) we get a phone call saying "please help, please help". If we hesitate for half a second, the whole world jumps on our backs asking how we can just stand by and let such and such happen. The mentality throughout the world really seems to be, when something goes wrong, make the USA fix it, then blame them for it happening in the first place. The world is scared of us? They ought to be, because we've got a pissed off president right now and we're not going to be the quiet little whipping boy like we were during the Clinton years. We're not going away quietly, and we're not backing down. If people want to blow one another up in a foreign country, we'll help (like always) when we're asked to; but we'll be God-Damned if we're going to let people attack our citizens. It ends here, and it ends now. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the Phillipines, Sudan, Palestine, Somalia, and every other country where people plotting against American citizens are hiding better find a way to get those people out of their country, because we're coming for them and if we have to tear through the countryside to get to them, we will. We'll help you rebuild when we're done, but for now, if you let them hide in your house, you ain't gunna have a house for long.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Windows NT4/5/5.1 all based (if not somewhat loosely) on the VMS kernel?
Not to defend M$, but let's call a spade a spade; Windows 2000 is reasonably stable so long as you don't (through ignorance or purpose) destroy the internals. My home machine runs Windows 2000 24/7 and reboots (90% of the time scheduled) maybe once a month. While this is nothing compared to your average FreeBSD machine, it's very impressive in the world of Windows.
In any event, NT != Win9x, but Win9x == DOS to my knowledge. So we see: Starting Windows ||||||||||||| Instead of: Staring MS-DOS......
Or perhaps instead of Starting FreeBSD / - \ | / -.....
Pardon me, but if you want to run up and hug someone who's firing a gun at you, feel free, but I've no problem with shooting them in the head. Humanitarian crisis in afghanistan? Are you people serious? Men, women, and children were tortured and mudered every single day by the Taliban. Women were regarded as less than a farm animal. Now there are women in school, and the children are taught mathematics instead of "death to America, kill yourself for Islam." The US dropped food to the afghan people, and some people bitched. The US freed the afghan people from a totalitarian regime, and still some people bitched. We took prisoners to an American base, fed them, clothed them, gave them a place to sleep, all at cost and risk to us, and still people bitched. Amnesty Int would bitch if we put Al Qaida prisoners up at the Waldorf Estoria with room service and a view. If you want to hug the guy with a bomb strapped to his chest, feel free. I find this to be a good thing, as when he detonates himself, it'll quiet the bitching and moaning about our treatment of these murders, and you'll likely shield me from the blast. Thank you, I appreciate that.
As for capital punishment, it's hotly contested even here in the US. Why don't we end it? Because we have a process. If it's decided that capital punishment doesn't fit our justice system, it will be eliminated. People whining at us will not eliminate it. Personally, I'm all for it. It reduces the cost of housing/feeding this person for the rest of their life; it ensure they will never walk the street again (no chance for escaping from prison 10 years down the road); and it most certainly fits the crimes to which it's applied. In most cases, the family of the victim (assuming it's homocide) has enormous pull to ensure the death penalty is not used if they don't believe in it. (Matthew Shepard case)
Now, I'm looking at this and I can't believe it:
Central Asia on the brink of a human rights crisis Philippines: Human rights must be respected to secure peace and stability in southern Philippines
We're supposed to force everyone in the world to play nice with one another? Whenever we try to ensure that people are treated justly, (Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Afghanistan/Bosnia/etc) all we get is flak for our "occupation". Everyone wanted the US to come and save Saudi Arabia from Iraq, and now they're bitching because we were/are on Saudi soil? I sincerely hope that we pull out of the middle east altogether, so that when Saddam starts firing off the chemical weapons and people start dieing, we can sit back and laugh at the ignorant folks who kept complaining about us being there.
We're always the first ones everyone calls when something bad happens, and we're the one everyone complains to when anything happens that they don't like. "Please come save me, but get the hell out when I say so." The people who decry our way of life are the same people who gain a large benefit from it. Those in the Middle East who complain about our way of life don't seem to have any problem accepting the money they get from selling us oil. Were it not for the US, the kurds in northern Iraq would still be dieing of the chemical weapons used on them, kuwait would be an Iraqi province, afghan women would still be being beaten and murdered while denied the most basic rights, most of Japan's income wouldn't be there, and WWII would have ended a bit differently (lest you forget the American supplies we sent, the Sherman tanks, the troops, the weapons, food, engineers, etc). Hell, the French still hate the Americans for some odd reason, even though we helped liberate France.
Speaking for the USA, we'd like a friggin 'thank you' some time soon.
You're misunderstanding the context of the word 'control'. When a cult controls someone's thoughts/emotions/etc, they aren't just influencing them, they're completely annihilating any alternative whatsoever to the point that the cult member knows no other way to think/feel/act/etc. There are homosexual members of the Catholic church, despite the fact that the Catholic church generally frowns upon homosexual acts. A member of a cult who manages to think differently in any way would be completely thrown asside, ignored, possibly harmed or even killed.
If you've never seen someone who's locked in a cult, then you have no idea to what an incredible degree of control they're under.
I've seen Muslim fanatics, and I've seen christian fanatics... but they don't begin to compare to someone who's in a cult.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I think we should all stop complaining and whining and put our money where our mouths are. The RIAA and MPAA have a ton of money to throw at these guys, but there's one thing they want more than money; and that's re-election. Why? It means more money in the end. Now I have an idea on how to do this, and I think we can fairly easily make it work. Please at least hear me out if you care enough to have read this far:
.. "Your senator wants to put you in JAIL for taping your favorite TV show!") We make an example out of 1 or 2 and the rest start wondering if they're next. They then weaken or withdraw their support for the entertainment industry and we start getting what we want for a change.
A small lobbying group forms to represent the interests of the consumer against the major media companies and their representatives (RIAA/MPAA/etc). Everyone who can sends in at least $10 or so by check, money order, cash, whatever. Assuming we get no other funding and no one sends more than $10, we should end up with roughly $1million in total. (assuming not even half of the slashdot readers send in). Obviously, this is nothing compared to the 60 and 70 million dollars that the entertainment industry puts in the pockets of politicians, so we take a more targeted approach. We pick the most vocal ally of anti-consumer/pro-entertainment industry legislation (offhand, I'd say Hollings) and target their constituents with ads all over the TV and radio. Every dirty trick and rotten bill he puts forth, we sensationalize the hell out of it, then put it right in front of the people deciding whether they're re-elected. ("Your senator wants to make sure you can't even listen to your own CD on your computer!"
That's my basic idea, if anyone wants to refine it, post a reply. This is a real way we can get something done for a change, and a small amount of money put forth isn't going to kill any of us. Even if it fails completely, you're out $10; so what? If it succeeds, you'll have been a part of something great. Anyone feel like putting together a full proposal with a timetable and tangeable steps at putting this in place? Feel free to post. This isn't just a US problem, the world needs to wake up from this dream that a corrupt entertainment industry can have its problems solved by legislating away rights supposedly guarenteed to us. It's time we did something about it.
Hello folks, is this thing on?
This bill doesn't do much of anything to assure us of privacy. If anything, it ensures that spammers and the like have the legal rights to track us. This bill basically divides all information into two categories (personal/important and non-personal/unimportant) and sets an opt-in for the 'important' information while not even guaranteeing an opt-out for what it considers 'unimportant'.
Of course you're asking yourself, "what's he mean unimportant?" Glad you asked. Your name, address, record of any and all purchases, etc.; important, personal information you're probably thinking. Wrong. Don't feel bad, I made the same mistake at first. Then I looked at who was pushing this thing (Fritz Hollings (SSSCA/DMCA/etc)) and I smacked my head and said, "oh, now I get it." The only information spammers care about is the information NOT protected by this bill.
Gee, I have an idea, let's forward all spam email to Fritz Hollings' email address and see how he likes his own medicine. It amazes me that the citizens of South Carolina would allow such an anti-freedom, anti-constitution, anti-consumer, anti-individual, pro-corporation, pro-media (christ, he's referred to as the "Senator from Disney) to continue representing them. I somehow doubt that the majority of the citizens of South Carolina would vote for most of what he pushes if they knew what he was pushing.
I say we give into Hollings. I mean, all he wants is lots of money, a large plantation, and plenty of people he can humiliate and beat down at will. Can't we get that for him so he'll go away? To me, it's absolutely insane that such a person is allowed to remain in office. We should have some sort of monthly review board for every member of Congress so that when they completely abandon their constituents, they can be removed from office quickly and quietly, making way for a human being with a heat that pumps blood instead of oil.
Gee, I don't know - purchasing a company with multiple lawsuits pending and injunctions in place virtually ceasing all business operations?
I think you have the wrong 3 E's. This sounds more like Enron, Enron, Enron.
Does this mean all the BS info I fed into the hotmail account is going to be exposed? Oh no, what a pity.
When will people learn not to trust any company that exists primarily on the internet?
Internet Explorer is the most stable and secure web browser ever made. Why do they need a patch for it?
If I'm not mistaken, isn't quantum tunneling extremely inefficient? I've seen it used to carry an audio signal "faster than light" (according to those conducting the experiments) but the signal degredation was pretty bad due to the fact that on the quantum level, everything is a simple matter of chance. Some of the particles being manipulated behave as expected, and many more do not.
The fact that they haven't even begun to actually try cooling anything suggests to me that this is this week's vaporware and next week's laughware.
Actually, I made it up on the spot. I've never heard of "The Din of Celestial Birds", nor "Altman's Tongue".
Big books with big words scare me.
My sig? Yes.
If everything I am can be explained by this theory, then I am fundamentally no different from a rock or a star, and therefore cannot be held accountable for anything I do as I'm simply acting according to the laws of physics. If this is the case, than every little thing I do for the rest of my life can be predicted with no possible way for me to change it. Free will is meaningless, morality is useless, and I just wanna get laid.
Buildings that cannot withstand a 5.2 earthquake should be investigated.
What's to investigate? The pile of rubble?
Here, I shall provide you with a thorough investigation report:
engineer1: "Shit, that was only a 5.2, and that building collapsed. I didn't even spill my coffee."
engineer2: "Gee, sucks to be them. Oh well."
engineer1: "Want to grab a burger?"
engineer2: "Ok."
Didn't feel a thing. No apparent damage. No injuries. Carry on.
In regards to the omnipresent quest for attention, I agree. However, that being said, I shall explain why this is in fact a problem.
.com's to choose from and you believe that those using Yahoo.com have made a choice. I see 1000 services, each less useful and more invasive than the last. It's not a choice, it's a lack of options. In the automotive industry, I have a choice; Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, etc. In the web services industry, I have Yahoo (underhanded, dirty tactics, spam-friendly), Hotmail (M$, poor security, restricted services, charges for something slightly better), and it gets even better from here.
The majority of people do not look at the consequences of policy changes (be they corporate or government) with regards to privacy. Much of the time, most people aren't aware of the fact that a policy change is being made. Ask 100 people on the streets of NYC what the DMCA is and I'll bet that less than 20 will answer with a remotely correct response. Ask what the SSSCA was and you're not likely to find 5.
Now let's look at Yahoo. Most of those reading slashdot know what Yahoo did. Most of us who read slashdot have at least some scrap of cognitive capacity and perhaps a few even read through most of the daily news here and at other websites. We knew what Yahoo was up to long before their policy changes went into affect. However - a great many people do not keep up with the news, nor do they read the little announcements on the yahoo pages. For these folks (probably a majority), they have no clue of the policy changes at Yahoo, and didn't have the common sense to not give real information to Yahoo. Thus, we have sheep going along with the flow while those "in the know" take full advantage of them at every turn. There is, in fact, something that is not working; and it's a combination of widespread apathy and big-wig sneakiness. Granted, no one expects large corporations to play nicely, but to disregard the choices of the general public because it doesn't fit your business model is absolutely wrong. There is a common misconception amoung large businesses that the public exists to serve the needs of the corporation, when it is of course, the other way around. One also sees this in government. Nowhere is this more identifiable than in the entertainment industry, where consumers are no longer enticed, they are coralled. When you combine this with the general apathy we see so much of these days, we see a system in which the government and large corporations "pull the wool over the eyes" of people who just plain don't give a shit.
Then you have us - the few who do care about ourselves and others, yet who exist in too small numbers to actually accomplish much. While our rights and freedoms are stripped away at an alarming rate by our government, our freedom of choice and quality of service is reduced to a dream while we, ourselves are reduced to a number by large corporations. We few who recognize this are helpless to defend ourselves. If we don't like what Yahoo is doing, we can certainly switch to another service; one with less features and more problems. You see 1000
For those about to complain that I want everything for free and am just another low-life freeloading Linux user, I will say this - I have no problem paying a reasonable price for a high quality good or service. I have every problem paying a high price for what could be dirt cheap if it weren't run by a bunch of money-grubbing gluttons. I just bought Red Hat Linux box set, and am about to order Star Office. These are both quality products offered at reasonable prices. $400+ for an operating system that causes more headaches than a radiation leak and crashes more often than a rich suburban drunken speed-freak is not reasonable.
That might take some doing.
Before getting to Hollings, he'd have to get through Hilary Rosen, Jack Valenti, and Mickey Mouse; each of whom guards Hollings' office 24/7.
I've got $50 on Mickey.
Of all the things I'd like to say in an infinitesimally small period of time as I sit here shaking my head, the best I can come up with is... wow.
Ok, now let's try and take this slowly here, one by one; deep breaths. Stand back folks, this comment is about to be disassembled, burned, stomped on, crumpled up, and tossed into a fiery trashcan-hell which our tiny human minds cannot begin to fathom.
"I can't help but wonder what exactly you think you're giving up by having a biometric print on your driver's license, instead of a 9-digit number."
Well first of all, I'd like to mention that the Social Security Act of 1935, which was the act under which the social security number was created, never gave any authority for this number to ever be used for identification. Secondly, on each social security card for the first few decades they were issued, there were two things printed that have since been removed. Specifically, it was printed that the number was "Not for Identification Purposes" and that you should never give the number out to anyone except an official from the Social Security Administration. Why? Because the lawmakers of the time recognized the value in not having each person reduced to a number. I have a problem with the number being used anywhere except where it is specifically needed for the SSA, especially on a license. Here is why: suppose you are stopped for a traffic offense, or at a police checkpoint (meaning you've done nothing wrong, yet are still stopped). Now, the officer is going to ask you for your license. Assuming the license has your SSN (social security number), this violates the 1974 Privacy Act. This act "states that no person will be denied service by a government agency for failure to disclose their SSN, except for some exceptions. In addition, it states that a government agency which does request the SSN must disclose whether it be voluntary or obligatory, and if it is obligatory, what law requires it, and what use will be made of it." Therefore, if the officer wants my SSN, he best begin by answering some of my questions. Such as, "Is it really necessary?", and "Exactly which law and/or statue gives you the authority to request my SSN?", and "What exactly will you be doing with my SSN officer?" As (s)he is an official of the federal, state, or local law enforcement agency, he is bound by the law, yet if I were to ask for the information to which I am, under the law, entitled, I doubt I'd get an answer I'd like, if any at all. But I digress.
So your question was what do we lose? Well, we are reduced to nothing more than an entry in a database. (ie. I'm no longer John Smith, I'm now Citizen #192,114,983) What is the problem with this you ask? It's dehumanizing. I, for one, am not a 'zombie'. I am a human being, and expect and demand to be treated as such; especially by my government. To have myself and my life reduced to a small pile of information is both degrading and insulting. Since that idea doesn't bother you, why not submit to having a barcode tattood on your forehead? If the idea of a barcode on your forehead bothers you, perhaps you should ask yourself why.
"Do you honestly think that by having the (assumed) Encrypted Permutation of the measurements of the veins in your eye on the DMV computer system, that you'll suddenly be some Arnold Schwarzenegger'd character fleeing the Borg Uberpolice in some post-armageddon techno-dictatorship? "
Suddenly? No. But I think that even the most totalitarian regime had to start somewhere, and reducing all citizens to numbers, then tracking their every move seems like a good start. Legitimizing the practice by legislating it keeps the revolution at bay until everyone gets a bit more used to the idea. Uberpolice you ask? Well, when the police can tell me where I was on the morning of April 3, 2001, what I had for breakfast, where I went, what I did, if I bought a paper of withdrew money from an ATM, bounced a check, paid my bills, etc, then I say to you, I live in a police state from which there is no escape. Do I care if the DMV of NJ knows what my eye looks like? Not in the least bit. But when they want to tie in every database from every federal and state agency to compile a list of everything I do every minute of every day, then I say the DMV gets my retinal scan when they autopsy my cold dead body. To hell with any nation or government which actively polices it's own citizens. Motto of the great State of New Hampshire: Live Free or Die.
"Lets face it...there are some areas where privacy is important (medical records, for example)...but we already have LAWS against unauthorized access to said materials. "
Let's be clear about one thing: Privacy is important in ALL areas. Let's ask a simple question, would you have a problem with your name, telephone number, address, children's names and ages, your past sexual history, your purchasing habits, daily life, reading habits, religion, and other such information being collected and stored by corporations and the government for whatever use they see fit? (From marketing by companies, to searches by police of your house and property because you fit the profile of someone 'likely to commit a crime'. (See also: racial profiling) The list of possibilities for use of information that you're willing to give up is staggering. What worries me isn't so much what I can think of in terms of misuse, it's all the things I can't think of right now. Do you think that the authors of the DMCA ever imagined a scientific research paper wouldn't be published because of legal threats stemming from the DMCA?
"Isn't this the whole debate with the SSSCA or whatever it's called now? That we're looking to legislate things that are ALREADY ILLEGAL?"
Boy, that's just funny; that's what that is. The CBDTPA (formerly the SSSCA) would force every single piece of software or hardware produced after the bill is enacted into law to have embedded technologies that conform to government-mandated standards to eliminate unauthorized copying of copyrighted materials. That's what it does on it's face, now let's look at the consequences. All open source software would then need to be pretty much re-written. Everything from the Windows Media Player to the 'cp' command in future editions of *nix's/Linux would have to have standards-compliant code (with all its bugs and bloat) making many perfectly legal activities impossible. Forget making backups of your computers at that point. Assuming they contain software with the 'dont copy' bit, it isn't going to work. Forget making a mix CD from the CD's you bought last week, it's not going to work. These are all 'fair use' activities and perfectly legal. They'll still be legal, they just won't be possible, as you'd have to circumvent the copy-protection technology (which is illegal) to do it.
Think of it this way: right now, it's perfectly legal for you to walk to the house facing yours. It's a right recognized by everyone, and you do so frequently. Last week, a paved road (ie. 'street') was put in between your house and the one facing yours. It's still legal to go there, but now you must cross this street, so you do. Now, Senator Hollings wants to pass a bill saying it's perfectly legal to visit the house facing yours, but you may not cross the street to get there. (no jokes about flying above, tunneling under, etc please). So let's think about this for a moment, it's legal to visit the house, it's just that the only way to get there is illegal. The street isn't necessary, travel was fine before it was paved, but you cannot cross it just the same.
For those who think "hey, the cp command was around before this bill, it's grandfathered, right?" Right, until you want to release the next version of the software. FreeBSD 5.0 would probably be ok, but FreeBSD 6.0 would probably be legally forced to re-write anything capable of copying or displaying any digital content with standards-compliant code added. Then you get to re-write just about every application in existence when you want to release the next version, and now your hardware will cost a bit more thanks to the R&D for the embedded technology and added cost of making the product work right with it. Those who develop software in their free time should be screaming about this. Anyone who's ever written even a simple text editor should realize that if they wrote it post CBDTPA, it would have to comply with government standards on copy protection. (Those who don't write software, please don't chime in here, you don't know what you're talking about.)
"It's a different key for the same lock."
It's a universal key. Someone cracks it, they have everything. Right now, they need some luck along with your SSN, etc. Using a single key for everything is no different than using one password for everything. Think about it, if you use a 17 character password with numbers, upper/lower-case letters, symbols, (a really good password) for everything, then you're in trouble if anyone gets ahold of it. Doesn't matter how good it is, someone will break it. If it takes 20 years for someone to break it, they will, and when they do, your entire life belongs to them. You can say there's no way, and I'll just smile and nod and point you to the MPAA, who said CSS would never be cracked. It's not the biometrics that's a problem, it's the authentication that can be cracked, the databases that can be cracked, etc.
"Convicted sex offenders should be branded across the forehead"
What a great idea. Let's take a human being and burn their head with a hot plate of iron so they'll be ridiculed and beaten the rest of their lives. But you know what? I seem to remember some crazy guys a while back who wrote something to the effect that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Gee, those silly creators of our country, what were they thinking?
Ok, now that we're done with the sarcasm, let's think about this for a moment. first off, go read a book called The Scarlet Letter. Secondly, this most certainly qualifies as "cruel and unusual punishment". I'm one who's all for the rights of the victims. TRUST ME when I say I know first hand exactly what it feels like to have someone you love fall victim to a 'sex offender'. Your first instinct is to kill them; at least mine was. Unfortunately, we don't have the tools necessary to ensure this type of thing never happens in our society, but what we do have is a fairly good criminal justice system, which, while not perfect, is constantly being reviewed and changed to better serve the public. Branding someone's forehead does nothing to ensure that they're able to become productive citizens. Megan's law, while nice on paper and hard to argue with ("you don't want a law that protects people?") does nothing to get a person the help they need. Instead, putting someone out like that makes them feel isolated and hated. Indeed, it has brought ruin to many convicted offenders' lives. When someone is unable to live a normal life, they eventually start looking for the next best thing, which might put your wife or kids in danger. I have no problem with a sex offender being fairly heavily monitored by law enforcement, but once they've served their time, they ought be allowed to live some sort of life.
""DO NOT TRUST WITH YOUR 6-YEAR OLDS!" mark on their record, available to law enforcement and grade school HR departments"
We have this, it is known as a criminal record. Criminal records are (with the exception of children) a matter of public record. If a school does not do a criminal record check on its employees, they have a problem in their administration.
"Likewise, "Known Terrorist" or "Most Wanted" notices are GOOD THINGS for airport checkin personel to see. ""That you have AIDS, or that you're secretly dressing in women's panties, are secrets best kept to yourself. That you have served twenty years for deflowering an Alterboy or have trained in an Al Qaida camp should be open to the world. And I, for one, don't have a problem with that."
This is the way things are, and if you're happy, why did you post? AIDS positive tests are a matter of medical records, which are regulated by law. That you dress in women's panties is not tracked by anyone (well, maybe spam companies) and is also usually private. If you had sex with a child, you have a criminal record, which can be checked. If you are a well-known terrorist, you are on the State Department's terrorist watch list.
You're taking the average over the RC5-64 project, which has been over 1600 days, meaning you're looking at the computing power available to this particular project, some 600 - 700 days ago or so.
Use my suggestion to add in the seti@home users' computational power, then add in a rough estimate of net users gained over the life of the project, then apply moore's law to compute the addition of faster cpus, and you'll be able to calculate the most likely time for completion (assuming say, 60% keyspace searched, which takes the average 1/2 and ads 10% for overhead). If you can do the math on that one, you're a better man (or woman) than I, but I'll bet you it'd be MUCH sooner than you think to complete the project. Assume it should take roughly 10 years (just for argument's sake) your average computational power would lie I believe somewhere around the 7th or 8th year. I could be a bit off on this, it's 2am and I've been up about 28 hours now. I think I need sleepy time.
"Citizen #31842785 purchased one gallon of milk, one bottle of aspirin, and.. oh wait, a pornographic magazine! Let's get the warrant quickly so we can protect this citizen's neighbors from his deviant activities. While we're waiting for the warrant, let's bug his phones, interogate his lawyer, and have his house searched so he can't expose anyone else to his sick mind while we're waiting for the warrant so we can bring him to the Thought Purification Center. You know, we really shouldn't need a warrant for this, it's for the good of the nation."
-This has been a John Ashcroft production.
All events in the preceeding story are fictional, until we can get around this ridiculous Bill of Rights with a new law entitled, "The Patriotic, Being Nice, Love, Protection, Good Feelings Act." (or any other name that sounds too warm and fuzzy to vote against.)
(mod me down if you like, but this is exactly what some people would like to happen. 1984 isn't just a book any more.)
Ok, now all you folks staring at the pretty screensaver really ought to be cracking keys for Distributed.net.
If everyone just jumped on RC5, we'd have the 128-bit key done by now, and ET would still be there waiting for us. If you're going to talk to aliens, shouldn't you at least let them know your computer can brute force a 128-bit encrypted RC5 key? If that doesn't impress them, nothing will. Once they see that, they'll probably show us the secrets of interstellar travel, and eternal life, things like that. But only if we crack keys first, so go download the Dnetc client and get cracking!
Please, do me a favor...
Call them from work on Monday, and laugh at them.
Then encourage as many co-worders as possible to do the same.
After sitting on the phone for over two hours with D-link, talking to three different people (including a supervisor), explaining that I set up wireless routers several times a week for a living, and that this defective part needs to be RMA'd, I was told they'd have a tech call me back. One would think that RMA'ing an obviously defective product would be cheaper for the company than letting me sit on the phone with someone who has a double-digit IQ, only to have a "tech" call me back at a later time, when they'll end up having to RMA it anyway.
In any event, my boss has already decided we're using Linksys from now on, and it's been 3 business days without a call back from this mysterious "tech". Needless to say, I had no problem understanding where this article was coming from.
The one bright spot in all this was the fact that I spent two hours on wednesday doing nothing but chit chatting on the telephone, sitting on my arse while getting paid.
If I recall correctly, aren't there some quarter million people who read /. daily? Many of us are computer professionals and would have no problem (at least from a financial standpoint) giving a couple hundred dollars a year or so to a responsible group who could organize and push forward with lobbying to our benefit. Assuming less one in twenty gave an average $100, you could be looking at over $1,000,000 ($100 * 10,000 people) per year. I should think this would be plenty for a small staff to maintain a single focal point where everyone concerned about their rights can keep up to date and can be informed about how to help with an organized fight to ensure our continued freedoms.
As corny as that sounds, look at what we're facing. The DMCA, the SSSCA, they exist for one reason: money. Being elected is a great way to get rich quickly, so these people will do anything they have to to ensure they're re-elected. Attacking people like Hollings with a million dollar+ annual budget would certainly make a point. The Senator from Disney would have one heck of a time getting elected if negative adds were running non-stop for the last few weeks before the next election. When you can take down the big boys, the small fish learn quickly to sit down and shut up, and do as they're told.
With all the high tech people that are out of work right now, I'm sure some must be reading this who have some sort of campaign/government experience who can set this up. Show me a responsible, organized effort to put a PAC together and I'll not only join and donate, I'll do everything I can to make sure other people do as well.
Ahh yes, my latest USA rant gets a response! And an intelligent one at that (as opposed to something like "you're gay" or "death to America".) Ok, here we go.
... and followed up by dropping anti-personnel bombs which looked just like the food packets. (After convincing the Pakistan to close it borders and prevent the UN and Red Cross food shipments which were really feeding Afghanistan.)
... and left them to the tender mercies of the Warlords who were in charge before. Pashtuns, who happen to be the ethnic group the Taliban came from, are being killed in the street because of their accents -- it is assumed that Pashtun=Taliban.
... often too late.
:)
... USA. The reason given was that Americans might be tried for War Crimes. Is the USA 'above the Law'? Because that is what your goverment is arguing.
:P, or russia... too big and too cold, or australia... too much beer). We don't want to run the world, and we don't want to be the world's hall monitor. But every time something happens (WWII, gulf war, phillipines, etc) we get a phone call saying "please help, please help". If we hesitate for half a second, the whole world jumps on our backs asking how we can just stand by and let such and such happen. The mentality throughout the world really seems to be, when something goes wrong, make the USA fix it, then blame them for it happening in the first place. The world is scared of us? They ought to be, because we've got a pissed off president right now and we're not going to be the quiet little whipping boy like we were during the Clinton years. We're not going away quietly, and we're not backing down. If people want to blow one another up in a foreign country, we'll help (like always) when we're asked to; but we'll be God-Damned if we're going to let people attack our citizens. It ends here, and it ends now. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, the Phillipines, Sudan, Palestine, Somalia, and every other country where people plotting against American citizens are hiding better find a way to get those people out of their country, because we're coming for them and if we have to tear through the countryside to get to them, we will. We'll help you rebuild when we're done, but for now, if you let them hide in your house, you ain't gunna have a house for long.
;)
Yes, the US dropped food
Followed up? No, we'd been dropping those for some time. This was a simple case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. You want to make food packets easy to see so locals can get right to them. You want to make bombs easy to see so that any unexploded ordinance is avoided. The problem is that the folks who made up the food packets ended up using a packaging which was similar in color and vaguely similar in shape to the bombs. The people who made the bombs != the people who made the food. Unless you're Steven Segal, you aren't making bombs during the day and veil during the evening. Also take into account that the food would have been handled by different people, flown on different planes, and dropped in different areas by different crews. The two packages probably were never seen near one another before they hit the ground in Afghanistan. It's unfortunate, but it did happen. It was a mistake, we're sorry. All better?
Yes, the US freed the Afghanistani people from the Taliban
Left them? Ok, now correct me if I'm wrong, but... we're still in Afghanistan. Not only that, but we've helped put the new unified government in place, (even though we didn't set out to build the country again), and helped hammer out agreements for everything from peacekeeping troops, to funraisers, to bringing books to the afghan children so they could actually learn something in school. As for the people killing one another, hey, what can I say? They've been killing one another for hundreds of years, are we to blame for that too? We're being bounced around like a pinball and used in so many ways we lost count when all we want to do is wipe out taliban leaders, and get Al Qaida on the run (or dead, either way). We freed the people, don't blame us for what they choose to do with their freedom. We're like the world's whipping boy. When someone does something to someone else, everyone just yells, "blame the Americans."
Yes, the US is housing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. In cages most of the rest of the world wouldn't use to house dogs. They have spent the last 4? 5? months in custody without charge, without knowing where on the planet they are, and knowing that they are very likely to be 'tried' in a closed military court with no defence and sentenced to death.
Cages? Dogs? They're called cells. They are given plenty of food each day, and we're even catering to their religious meal requirments. We could hand them a big plate of pork and say "eat, don't eat, I don't give a shit", but we found food that wouldn't violate their religious beliefs and served it to them. When they decided not to eat that, and a few became de-hydrated or malnourished, we hooked them up to IV's to make sure they were ok. We've given them medical care, beds, blankets, food to their liking, and time each day to walk around outside. Let me ask you this, how were the American prisoners in Somalia treated? Let me answer that for you, they were tortured, murdered, stripped naked, then dragged through the streets. How about in Afghanistan? Well, a group of folks watched as a Predator drone got footage of a US soldier who was wounded being led away by Al Qaida soldiers, then shot in the back of the head. So how dare you even begin to question our treatment of these prisoners. As for the military tribunals, it's already been stated that only the upper leadership of Al Qaida would qualify for that little honor. Seeing as virtually all of the prisoners at Gitmo are simple foot soldiers, they'll probably be screened for intelligence, and eventually deported unless we have solid evidence against them. In any event, they're alive and being treated well, which is MUCH more mercy than they've ever shown our troops.
Have you ever bothered to find how long some of these people have been in jail? Some of them have been on Death Row for more than 10 years. How would you deal with ten years of 'maybe next week, they'll kill me'? And let's not mention the number of Death-Row inmates who were convicted on dubious evidence, or the number who have been proved innocent when better evidence came to light
You've just proved my point - anyone sentenced to death in the US has a VERY easy appeal process. The first is automatic, meaning they not only have to be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt by 12 people, 24 people must firmly believe that there's no other way it went down. The person can then spend in some cases the next twenty years going on and on with appeals. They're given every possible opportunity to prove their innocence. Someone given life in prison doesn't get that automatic appeal, and therefore has less of a chance to proce their innocence. To say they were convicted on "dubious" evidence is vague and inaccurate. It's hard finding 24 people who agree what color the sky is, so I think you can rest assured that when 24 people unanimously agree that this person comitted the crime without any reasonable doubt, and that they committed it in such a way as to warrent a death sentence, it wasn't just an on-the-fly 'yeah whatever' kind of thing. As for those proven innocent later on? I hate to tell you, but you'll find that anywhere in the world. No justice system is perfect, but when we put someone to death, we're damned sure we're not putting an innocent person to death. When it's discovered that a mistake was made, I think we're all saddened, but nothing is perfect, and you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. As for the inmate sitting in his cell pondering his upcoming death, I think it's fair considering that someone's wife, or someone's mother will never get to see that person again because your inmate took it upon themself to end their life. As far as I'm concerned, if you shoot a cop in cold blood, whatever sentence you're given isn't punishment enough, and if you don't want to be put to death, don't shoot the cop. This mentality that people should be given all this extra care and love is ridiculous. If you can't do the time (or sit in the chair) don't do the crime. All these criminals' rights people seem to have forgotten that the people they're fighting so hard for are the ones who shoot innocent people, rape kids, run over people with their car, murder their kids/parents/spouse, get young kids hooked on drugs, and all sorts of other things. They deserve the most basic rights, nothing more. They cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. I think two, three, four trials by jury is more than 'due' process. I don't assume that every defendant is guilty, quite the contrary. But when 12 people are convinced, then 24 are convinced, then 36, etc, then I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, regardless of whether I was there or not to see them committ the crime. The death penalty makes a great deterrant. It doesn't stop anyone from comitting a crime, but it sure as hell cuts down on the repeat offenders.
Go give Ted Bundy a hug, he needs some love. While you're at it, give all those parents their daughters... you know, the ones he murdered?
Well, maybe an International Police Force and corresponding International Court of Justice would take some of this unwanted pressure off, eh? Such a pity that the number one veto state in the UN Security Council (in charge of that Police Force) is the USA. Such a pity that the main obstacle to the foundation of the Court of Justice was and is
Above the law? No. But our citizens have a Constitutional right to be tried by a jury of their peers, something an international court might not respect. Our government has a responsibility to ensure the rights of its citizens, and I therefore support them fully here. Now, if a US president ordered the systematic slaughter of a race/group, or was ordering and/or causing the intentional murder of innocent civilians on a mass scale (ie genocide) then I'd be the first person calling for him/her to be tried in the Hague. But you're not about to take a US pilot who makes a mistake and make an example out of him just because you're pissed at us and want to show us up to the world. We'll try our own citizens, thank you. If you'd like to put together a nice little sideshow for one another, feel free, but we'll have no part in it; especially not when we ARE the international police force.
Here's an idea. Ask yourself this: What would someone have to do to make me hate them so much that I would willingly and happily kill myself if it meant they might suffer or die.
That's the classic blame-the-victim mentality. "Well Gloria, you must have done something very terrible to make Bill beat the shit out of you like that. What did you do to make him so mad?" You know, we get bitched at for giving aid to Israel. Guess what, we give aid to a large portion of the world. Finding a country we give aid to is about as easy as finding one we don't give aid to. As I said before, the Middle Eastern countries that bitch when we support something they don't like are awefully quiet when we hand them that nice fat check for their oil. You can't have it both ways, we either help everyone who needs help, or we help no one. Pick one. You also failed to point out the fact that the people with the bombs strapped to their chests aren't attacking the so-called oppressers. I might begin to have some sort of sympathy for someone who's desperate and scared and goes after the person shooting at them, their friends, their family. But they aren't. The 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001 weren't soldiers oppressing a people. They were office workers, accountants, lawyers, bankers, firemen, policemen, and they were thousands of miles from the countries the attackers came from. The bombers in Israel aren't attacking military outposts, they're planned and executing attacks against people going to work, or people hanging out at a nightclub. They're murdering people who just want to buy groceries at the market, or who want to take a trip to a holy site. The suicide bombers aren't even killing people who are armed. They're killing children in the streets, and civilians on buses. They aren't defending anything, they're murdering innocent people. So your blame-the-victim mentality just falls to pieces in light of the reality of the attacks.
Your government has made itself the new Roman Empire, straddling the world. Read a history of the Roman Empire sometime, and find out why so many people around the world are getting scared
The Roman Empire? We don't conquer; we could - but we choose not to. We could occupy afghanistan, or Iraq, or virtually any other country we choose to (aside from perhaps china, too many damn people
I look forward to your response
Once again I hear the word "free". Further proving that people that cry for open-source all of the time are ball numbing freeloaders.
Get a fucking job
Mr Gates, to what do we owe this pleasure?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Windows NT4/5/5.1 all based (if not somewhat loosely) on the VMS kernel?
.....
Not to defend M$, but let's call a spade a spade; Windows 2000 is reasonably stable so long as you don't (through ignorance or purpose) destroy the internals. My home machine runs Windows 2000 24/7 and reboots (90% of the time scheduled) maybe once a month. While this is nothing compared to your average FreeBSD machine, it's very impressive in the world of Windows.
In any event, NT != Win9x, but Win9x == DOS to my knowledge.
So we see:
Starting Windows |||||||||||||
Instead of:
Staring MS-DOS......
Or perhaps instead of Starting FreeBSD / - \ | / -
Have you looked up the USA on the Amnesty site?:
Pardon me, but if you want to run up and hug someone who's firing a gun at you, feel free, but I've no problem with shooting them in the head. Humanitarian crisis in afghanistan? Are you people serious? Men, women, and children were tortured and mudered every single day by the Taliban. Women were regarded as less than a farm animal. Now there are women in school, and the children are taught mathematics instead of "death to America, kill yourself for Islam." The US dropped food to the afghan people, and some people bitched. The US freed the afghan people from a totalitarian regime, and still some people bitched. We took prisoners to an American base, fed them, clothed them, gave them a place to sleep, all at cost and risk to us, and still people bitched. Amnesty Int would bitch if we put Al Qaida prisoners up at the Waldorf Estoria with room service and a view. If you want to hug the guy with a bomb strapped to his chest, feel free. I find this to be a good thing, as when he detonates himself, it'll quiet the bitching and moaning about our treatment of these murders, and you'll likely shield me from the blast. Thank you, I appreciate that.
As for capital punishment, it's hotly contested even here in the US. Why don't we end it? Because we have a process. If it's decided that capital punishment doesn't fit our justice system, it will be eliminated. People whining at us will not eliminate it. Personally, I'm all for it. It reduces the cost of housing/feeding this person for the rest of their life; it ensure they will never walk the street again (no chance for escaping from prison 10 years down the road); and it most certainly fits the crimes to which it's applied. In most cases, the family of the victim (assuming it's homocide) has enormous pull to ensure the death penalty is not used if they don't believe in it. (Matthew Shepard case)
Now, I'm looking at this and I can't believe it:
Central Asia on the brink of a human rights crisis
Philippines: Human rights must be respected to secure peace and stability in southern Philippines
We're supposed to force everyone in the world to play nice with one another? Whenever we try to ensure that people are treated justly, (Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Afghanistan/Bosnia/etc) all we get is flak for our "occupation". Everyone wanted the US to come and save Saudi Arabia from Iraq, and now they're bitching because we were/are on Saudi soil? I sincerely hope that we pull out of the middle east altogether, so that when Saddam starts firing off the chemical weapons and people start dieing, we can sit back and laugh at the ignorant folks who kept complaining about us being there.
We're always the first ones everyone calls when something bad happens, and we're the one everyone complains to when anything happens that they don't like. "Please come save me, but get the hell out when I say so." The people who decry our way of life are the same people who gain a large benefit from it. Those in the Middle East who complain about our way of life don't seem to have any problem accepting the money they get from selling us oil. Were it not for the US, the kurds in northern Iraq would still be dieing of the chemical weapons used on them, kuwait would be an Iraqi province, afghan women would still be being beaten and murdered while denied the most basic rights, most of Japan's income wouldn't be there, and WWII would have ended a bit differently (lest you forget the American supplies we sent, the Sherman tanks, the troops, the weapons, food, engineers, etc). Hell, the French still hate the Americans for some odd reason, even though we helped liberate France.
Speaking for the USA, we'd like a friggin 'thank you' some time soon.
Oh no, now I can't sign up! :(
You're misunderstanding the context of the word 'control'. When a cult controls someone's thoughts/emotions/etc, they aren't just influencing them, they're completely annihilating any alternative whatsoever to the point that the cult member knows no other way to think/feel/act/etc. There are homosexual members of the Catholic church, despite the fact that the Catholic church generally frowns upon homosexual acts. A member of a cult who manages to think differently in any way would be completely thrown asside, ignored, possibly harmed or even killed.
If you've never seen someone who's locked in a cult, then you have no idea to what an incredible degree of control they're under.
I've seen Muslim fanatics, and I've seen christian fanatics... but they don't begin to compare to someone who's in a cult.