Does anyone know if this decision is going to be appealed? Is this going to stick or is Verizon going to fight it?
Also, what keeps me from alleging privacy violations against someone else just to get their info? Is their any standard at all for "probable cause" now that the no longer need an actual subpoena?
Why should the music industry be prohibited from putting junk on the network?
Because it's a denial of service attack and DOS attacks are illegal. Why souldn't I be able to send you 1,000,000 1KB/dev/random emails with forged from addresses? Because I'm crapflooding your PC denying you its use. Not every file shared on P2P networks is illegal, and deliberately trying to deny P2P service by crapflooding the network deprives people of the use of that network.
"I believe you should have the right to neutralize a worm process running on someone else's infected system, if it's relentlessly attacking your network"
You don't have that right for lots of good reasons. Do I have the right to go into someone's house and unplug their stereo if the noise is annoying me. Nope. Should I? Of course not. If the noise is bothering me I'm supposed to call the police. If the attacks are bothering you, call their ISP. Vigilanteism is not the way to handle things, escpecially since what they may be doing might not even be illegal, but what you might do in response is.
Here are some good reasons why this guy should not be messing around with other's computers:
What if he breaks something? What if he thinks he's fixed the problem, but in the process looses critical data, causes loss of services, etc?
How do I know I can trust whoever decides to break into my system and "fix" something. Many times the only way to be sure you're secure after you've had an intruder in your system is to reformat and reinstall. If I find out that this guy has broken into my system, in order to be a responsible sysadmin, I need to reformat and reinstall just to be safe, in case this wonderfully helpful person has installed a rootkit so he can be "helpful" again at a later date.
What's to stop someone from using this as an excuse to break into a computer? Why not just break into a PC the is vulnerable to worm X, do anything you want with it and then modify the logs to make it look like all you were doing was fixing their worm problem.
Making something like this legal makes computer crimes harder to prosecute. I would not only have to prove that someone accessed my system without authorization, I would have to prove that they weren't doing it just to me helpful. That's going to be hard to prove and the burden of proof is on the prosecution. He can argue that he only downloaded my "/etc/passwd" file so he could figure out what users are possible, etc.
What if this guy thinks I've got a worm and I don't? What if someone decides to spoof some traffic just to make it look like I have a worm? What if I'm just running nmap? Can he still break into my machine, or can I have him prosecuted?
What if someone's only trying to help me with my worm problem, but I think they've got a worm. Do I start hacking them? What if I mess up the PC of this person who was only trying to be helpful?
BTW, I had a linux box get owned by the ramen worm a couple years ago. I never knew (I rarely used the box) until I got a call from my isp (my school at the time) telling me they had recieved a complaint from someone claiming I was scanning their network. They said they would disconnect me if it continued. I fixed the box, didn't get disconnected and the world was a better place once again. If my computer goes haywire and starts doing things it should, I accept that it may be pulled off the internet. I signed a contract saying that. I did not sign one saying anyone was allowed to log onto my box without my permission and try to fix things. If someone breaks into my computer, I'll press charges. It doesn't matter if they say they were only trying to be helpful, I can't/won't trust them.
I have personal info on my computer. I don't want anyone else getting it. If I send them to jail and have their computer confiscated, I'll at least have a better chance that they don't have any of it.
Exactly. That's the whole point of the book, elinating as many human security holes as possible.
Bummer about the censorship of your webpage.
I read your story anyways thanks to the internet wayback machine, but it's a shame just the same. Did you ever do any more with that feedback elimination project?
I don't care if this GOBBLES guy has a good track record, he's spouting total B.S. now and it's obvious.
Here are a few key B.S. things from his buqtraq post:
95% of machines? And no one has noticed? Yeah right.
Due to our NDA with the RIAA, we are unable to give out any other details
concerning the technology that we developed for them, or the details on any
of the bugs that are exploited in our hydra. Yeah right. If there was any NDA, he wouldn't be posting this message to bugtraq.
1) If you participate in illegal file-sharing networks, your
computer now belongs to the RIAA. Really? If it did I would be on the phone with the FBI getting GOBBLES the cyberterrorist thrown in jail. Breaking into other people's computers is illegal. If the RIAA was actually involved in this they would face a class-action lawsuit big enough to drive them to bankruptcy....think 95% percent infection rate and all those people suing them for theft of services, etc.
Look, the RIAA may be DOSing the P2P networks, but I just don't think they're stupid enough to break into people's computers. The P2P vigilante bill never passed, so these guys would be begging to go to jail.
Why are we posting trolls from other places? Doesn't slashdot have enough of its own?
Graffiti never held a candle to the Newton's handwriting recognition. I know; I used both.
You must be talking about one of the later Newton models. I still have one of the original Newtons and its handwriting recognition is absolutely horrendous.
I've heard that they managed to make the newton messagepad 2000 (?) something actually worth using, but I've never seen one. Is that what you have? There's no way you could be talking about the 110/120 series.
Now I have a Sharp Zaurus:)
So esentially, if SCOs to proved to be correct, that would make the GPL invalid for those portions of code, and thus it would be free game for anybody to use the code.
So very wrong. If the GPL is invalid, they work does not automatically go into the public domain. The original author of the code would still own the copyright, and since the GPL would no longer be granting you premission to use the code, you couldn't use it at all.
Also as another poster points out, overall it would be like Thompson Media distributing GPL'ed code, but since the code is encumbered by patents, the GPL is not in effect and Thompson Media has no right to distribute the code, so they are in violation of copyright law, because they do not have premission from the author to redistribute the work.
SCO must consider all options, it is after all a revenue generating corporation (supposedly).
What ever happened to social responsibility? Way too many people seem to think that it is the responsibility of a corporation to generate profit, regardless of any other concerns (including even it's own long-term concerns).
Just because you can make money by pretending to be handicapped and begging doesn't mean you aren't a sorry excuse for a human being if you do.
What if corporation X can have it's profits go up if they have their most vocal critics killed? Should they? Isn't it their responsibility, since it will increase their profits, especially if even after the cost of the fines they will have to pay if they kill these people, they will still have made more than they lost from the endevor? Hey, you can't put a corporation in jail, so they should go for it right?
Hey, murder is an option right? (albeit an illegal one)
Do they think people want their OS to be able to lock them out of certain parts of their machine?
You see, I can't really see any application for TCPA / Palladium besides taking control away from the owner of a computer. Any of the other "security" features TCPA/Palladium provides can/have been easily implemented in software. The only application that requires BIOS/hardware level modifications, is one where you are trying to prevent the person who owns the computer from have full control over it.
Lately I've been beginning to notice that some companies have internal conflicts of interest that cause them to do stupid things, which are not what consumers want. (Stupid because, they loose money because consumers go elsewhere to get hardware that isn't crippled and any piracy that was going to happen still happens anyways.)
Sony, for example. Being both a hardware company and a media company, they seem to have an internal conflict of interest: To many RIAA/MPAA types CD/DVD burners are synonymous with piracy, this must lead to internal pressure on the hardware branch of the company to try and control what people can do with Sony hardware. Ex: It's rumored that Sony DVD burners can burn Xbox games but not PS2 games, Sony Discmans have often had sub-par CDR playing ability, Sony Minidisc recorders had an annoying copy protection flag that prevented you from making many digital copies of a minidisc.
Does AMI have any such internal conflict of interest that is leading them to do this?
Or is it pressure from outside sources, and who are those sources?
Or does AMI think Joe-sixpack actually wants this?
This whole thing reminds me very much of the whole CPUID debacle. CPU manufacturer X starts putting unique ID numbers inside their CPU. They claim it will allow increased security for web transactions blah, blah, blah. The problem was there was not good reason why your average computer user would want a unique unchangable serial number for his computer. There was a tremendous potential for violation user's privacy and no good reason why they needed it in the first place. Why? A unique id could be implemented in software. The only reason to have it in hardware is to prevent the owner of the computer from changing/disabling it.
People didn't want them, and CPUIDs failed. Why does AMI think this is any different?
The only reason for TCPA / Palldium is to prevent the actual owner of a computer from having full access to its hardware. Any other benefit they claim is something that could be implemented in software (ex: writing an extension to the linux kernel so that it will only execute binaries signed with a certain public key).
The only reason to do all of this in hardware is to prevent the end-user from being able to modify the system as they sees fit (ex: modifying the code so that a user can sign his own program to do what he wants to with the DRM'ed err...umm TCPA'ed part of his machine.
Come on. Is that all you've got? What a condescending, pointless statement.
You already don't have "root" access to your own machine, unless you can hand code assembly language and know the registers and other particulars of your particular architecture.
Haven't you ever heard of "root" before.
Root access means full read/write permissions as well as hardware permissions. It's not the same thing as having performed a full code review on the entire system.
My point is not very complex, why don't you try and understand it?
I can read from and write to anywhere in memory or disk in my machine. The controller in my hard drive does what I want it to.
I could write machine code and access the registers if I wanted to. I have access to them. Yes, I could use that access if I wanted to, but not using that access is not the same thing as not having it, understand?
First off, there are fundamental flaws with biometric authenticaion systems that can't be solved. For example: Your fingerprints are not secret, you leave them all over the place, nor are they replacable once someone manages to get a copy of them.
Second, you don't need palladium to do any of those things you want to do as a developer/sysadmin. The only thing palladium gives you, that you couldn't do before is a protected area of the machine that you know/hope the owner of the machine can't access. (And you can only get access to that area if MS likes what you're doing.) Anything else you think palladium gives you either has been or can be implemented without it. Go ahead and give me one other thing that palladium does that can't be implemented purely in software.
Finally, "trusted computing" does not make business sense. It doesn't make business sense because it doesn't make business sense to be forced to rely on a single vendor for anything. With palladium, it becomes trivial to make software fixes, addons, etc. only work when made by the one company who's OS has control of the palladium hardware. It doesn't make business sense to give up control over your computers.
Trusted computing is a marketing term and is very misleading. Palladium doesn't make your system hackerproof, protect you from email viruses, or add "accountability".
'Untrusted' hardware will exist so long as there's a market for it. I see no reason to get too worked up over it.
Right, because the PC market is governed by pure capitalism. There are no monopolies out there abusing their power and causing the market to do things it wouldn't otherwise do. Good, I guess there's no reason to be worried at all. (shudder)
Palladium as I understand it has NO APPLICATION for content protection. It's not a DRM system.
You clearly don't understand it at all then.
Ask youself "Why do they need to add special hardware?" Everything you're saying it's for can be done via software. The point of Palladium is that you will not longer have "root" access to your own machine. The system is only going to trust "trusted" programs, but there's no way for you to decide if a program is trusted or not, is there? You don't get access to the key, this way the OS can stop you from running a program which copies that DRM-protected music file in the Palladium protected part of your hard disk onto a CDR. It pretty obvious that this system was designed for DRM.
Actually I don't take a single side on the Isreal/Palestine issue. I recognize that both sides have perpetrated some pretty despicable things.
My opinion, is that the solution lies in removing Sharon (a war criminal) from power, as well as other extremists on both sides of the line.
Both sides need to stop provoking each other. They need to recognize each other's right to exist and stop killing each other. I don't want one side to "win" I want them both to stand down.
I pretty much agree with you, but not totally, and it really pisses me off when people act like the US deserved 9/11 due to its foreign policy. Maybe you didn't mean to imply this, but speaking as though these terroists are rational people trying to defend their homeland is not proper.
I also think it's not fair to characterize the US as a "school yard bully." The US does do some good things too, try not to forget about that.
Finally, on the issue of Iraq: Saddam has to go.
It sounds like you're smart enough not pretend that the US has soldiers running around killing children in Iraq. You sound smart enough to know how and why those kids are really dying (from lack of food and medicine).
It's a shame that Bush is too corrupt to be trusted to do the job and it's a shame that Saddam will use any money he gets to buy weapons instead of feeding people. This only demonstates why Saddam needs to go: Saddam doesn't care about Iraq, he cares about himself. As a result, he can't be trusted, not just by the US, but by the UN or anybody else. Do you remember when Kofi Anan worked out that deal with him to allow inspectors back in? He never kept up his part of the bargain and he never planned to. He would rather kill large numbers of people or just let them die due to diseases and starvation, than loose power. You can't trust someone like that with nuclear weapons.
I think that in some cases, the US is justified in overthrowing foreign governments. What isn't justifyable is who they let gain power when they leave.
Straw man, you mean like taking parts of a comment and then only refuting part of what those parts say?
Did you read your own comment? It sums up the idea of a straw man quite nicely. Notice how you never really respond to the central points of my comment: that there are going to be people who want to hurt us even if we're nice, that terrorists should dictate US policies, etc. You choose to pick a single thing I said, that 9/11 was not justified, and misrepresent it.
You see, if you believe that 9/11 was not the way sensible human beings solve problems, then you're going to have to question whether these terrorists are sensisble human beings. If terrorists are not the most rational, psychologically-balanced individuals (pretty much a given) then you have to wonder if doing something rational would even matter to them. Get it?
In the future try not to be both clueless and condescending.
Re:Isn't deleting logs an obstruction of justice?
on
Cryptome Log Subpoenaed
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· Score: 1, Troll
If you want to stop terrorists attacking you, first learn what is being done in your name around the world, then let your politicions know that you aren't happy with them killing children to secure better access to oil, for the benefit of their corporate "sponsors". It's a much cleaner solution that asking for log file retention.
I hate to be the first to break it to you, but terrorist aren't always the most fair, rational people out there. I understand that some US foreign policy is bad and need to be fixed, but that's not an excuse to go around killing a bunch of innocent people any more than 9/11 would have been an excuse for the US to nuke Afghanistan.
Furthermore, you have to recognize that there are always going to be a few crazies out there. Even if the US was to suddenly adopt perfect foreign policies, that every country in the world agrees with, and magically right our past wrongs, there would still be people out there who want to kill others. Part of the purpose of orginizations like the FBI is to protect us from those people. There are always going to be some of them, eliminating every last one of them is just not possible. You just can please everybody.
It's like I tell other people:
We shouldn't decide our foreign policy based on what is going to result in the least terrorism. We should decide our foreign policy is such a way that we don't turn normal people into terrorists.
These are two very different things. The first is bad (you let anyone willing to kill enough civilians have control over US foreign policy). The second is good (the US stops screwing over other countries).
Finally, a country's bad foreign policy does not justify that mass murder of civilians within that country, both in Palestine and in the US, asshole.
Columbus wasn't a true American, dumbass. Nor was he seeking freedom, except perhaps the freedom to quickly sail to Asia and make lots of money on a new trade route.
Way to not get the point.
The point is, this country is the direct result of people being willing to put themselves in harms way.
Yeah, Columbus did some lousy things, but that's not the point. The point is he had the guts to cross the Atlantic, dumbass.
Re:Isn't deleting logs an obstruction of justice?
on
Cryptome Log Subpoenaed
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Shouldn't we as true Americans
True americans value their freedom. A police state is not free.
BTW 9/11 was not the result of a lack of information problem. They had all the information they needed to stop it. 9/11 was the direct result of a failure by the FBI use properly use the information they already had. Do a little research on what we knew and when. You'll learn that we had all the info we needed to catch these guys.
The current wave of laws and privacy invasions, have just about nothing to do with preventing terrorism. They are thinly veiled ways of using the fears of unwitting Americans (like you) to give up their freedoms, so they have more power and you have less.
Try not to be such a dolt. How exactly are your server logs going to prevent another 9/11? You're going to have to stretch your imagination pretty far to come up with a way your server logs could have stopped 9/11. Now ask yourself: What other things could these server logs be used for? In the case of a site like cryptome.org, you can think of a lot of shady things the gov't could do once it gets its hands one them, most of them a lot more plausible than stopping another 9/11.
You are an embarassment to true americans. Do you think Columbus, the pilgrims, the pioneers, etc. were as terrified as you? No, they wanted freedom and were willing to risk a little safety to have it.
A supreme court judge once said that the safest societies in the world are totalitarian dictatorships.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone know if this decision is going to be appealed? Is this going to stick or is Verizon going to fight it?
Also, what keeps me from alleging privacy violations against someone else just to get their info? Is their any standard at all for "probable cause" now that the no longer need an actual subpoena?
Why should the music industry be prohibited from putting junk on the network?
/dev/random emails with forged from addresses? Because I'm crapflooding your PC denying you its use. Not every file shared on P2P networks is illegal, and deliberately trying to deny P2P service by crapflooding the network deprives people of the use of that network.
Because it's a denial of service attack and DOS attacks are illegal. Why souldn't I be able to send you 1,000,000 1KB
I hope a few of these bastards get sent to jail.
It's not a fluke.
A friend of mine used to do that so he could steal his dad's beer from the garage.
I believe openers are set up to do this so you can't be crushed under one.
Check out this page for a discussion that may interest you
I have an sl-5500 and while it's not for everybody, I definately like it.
You don't have that right for lots of good reasons. Do I have the right to go into someone's house and unplug their stereo if the noise is annoying me. Nope. Should I? Of course not. If the noise is bothering me I'm supposed to call the police. If the attacks are bothering you, call their ISP. Vigilanteism is not the way to handle things, escpecially since what they may be doing might not even be illegal, but what you might do in response is.
Here are some good reasons why this guy should not be messing around with other's computers:
BTW, I had a linux box get owned by the ramen worm a couple years ago. I never knew (I rarely used the box) until I got a call from my isp (my school at the time) telling me they had recieved a complaint from someone claiming I was scanning their network. They said they would disconnect me if it continued. I fixed the box, didn't get disconnected and the world was a better place once again. If my computer goes haywire and starts doing things it should, I accept that it may be pulled off the internet. I signed a contract saying that. I did not sign one saying anyone was allowed to log onto my box without my permission and try to fix things. If someone breaks into my computer, I'll press charges. It doesn't matter if they say they were only trying to be helpful, I can't/won't trust them.
I have personal info on my computer. I don't want anyone else getting it. If I send them to jail and have their computer confiscated, I'll at least have a better chance that they don't have any of it.
Exactly. That's the whole point of the book, elinating as many human security holes as possible.
Bummer about the censorship of your webpage.
I read your story anyways thanks to the internet wayback machine, but it's a shame just the same. Did you ever do any more with that feedback elimination project?
Lead-lined backpacks and clothing.
Just think of how many you could sell....
Your target market could be:
the list just goes on and on
Here are a few key B.S. things from his buqtraq post:
Yeah right. If there was any NDA, he wouldn't be posting this message to bugtraq.
Really? If it did I would be on the phone with the FBI getting GOBBLES the cyberterrorist thrown in jail. Breaking into other people's computers is illegal. If the RIAA was actually involved in this they would face a class-action lawsuit big enough to drive them to bankruptcy....think 95% percent infection rate and all those people suing them for theft of services, etc.
Look, the RIAA may be DOSing the P2P networks, but I just don't think they're stupid enough to break into people's computers. The P2P vigilante bill never passed, so these guys would be begging to go to jail.
Why are we posting trolls from other places? Doesn't slashdot have enough of its own?
Graffiti never held a candle to the Newton's handwriting recognition. I know; I used both.
:)
You must be talking about one of the later Newton models. I still have one of the original Newtons and its handwriting recognition is absolutely horrendous.
I've heard that they managed to make the newton messagepad 2000 (?) something actually worth using, but I've never seen one. Is that what you have? There's no way you could be talking about the 110/120 series.
Now I have a Sharp Zaurus
So esentially, if SCOs to proved to be correct, that would make the GPL invalid for those portions of code, and thus it would be free game for anybody to use the code.
So very wrong. If the GPL is invalid, they work does not automatically go into the public domain. The original author of the code would still own the copyright, and since the GPL would no longer be granting you premission to use the code, you couldn't use it at all.
Also as another poster points out, overall it would be like Thompson Media distributing GPL'ed code, but since the code is encumbered by patents, the GPL is not in effect and Thompson Media has no right to distribute the code, so they are in violation of copyright law, because they do not have premission from the author to redistribute the work.
SCO must consider all options, it is after all a revenue generating corporation (supposedly).
What ever happened to social responsibility? Way too many people seem to think that it is the responsibility of a corporation to generate profit, regardless of any other concerns (including even it's own long-term concerns).
Just because you can make money by pretending to be handicapped and begging doesn't mean you aren't a sorry excuse for a human being if you do.
What if corporation X can have it's profits go up if they have their most vocal critics killed? Should they? Isn't it their responsibility, since it will increase their profits, especially if even after the cost of the fines they will have to pay if they kill these people, they will still have made more than they lost from the endevor? Hey, you can't put a corporation in jail, so they should go for it right?
Hey, murder is an option right? (albeit an illegal one)
They can have my Linux, when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.
Why is AMI doing this?
Do they think people want their OS to be able to lock them out of certain parts of their machine?
You see, I can't really see any application for TCPA / Palladium besides taking control away from the owner of a computer. Any of the other "security" features TCPA/Palladium provides can/have been easily implemented in software. The only application that requires BIOS/hardware level modifications, is one where you are trying to prevent the person who owns the computer from have full control over it.
Lately I've been beginning to notice that some companies have internal conflicts of interest that cause them to do stupid things, which are not what consumers want. (Stupid because, they loose money because consumers go elsewhere to get hardware that isn't crippled and any piracy that was going to happen still happens anyways.)
Sony, for example. Being both a hardware company and a media company, they seem to have an internal conflict of interest: To many RIAA/MPAA types CD/DVD burners are synonymous with piracy, this must lead to internal pressure on the hardware branch of the company to try and control what people can do with Sony hardware. Ex: It's rumored that Sony DVD burners can burn Xbox games but not PS2 games, Sony Discmans have often had sub-par CDR playing ability, Sony Minidisc recorders had an annoying copy protection flag that prevented you from making many digital copies of a minidisc.
This whole thing reminds me very much of the whole CPUID debacle. CPU manufacturer X starts putting unique ID numbers inside their CPU. They claim it will allow increased security for web transactions blah, blah, blah. The problem was there was not good reason why your average computer user would want a unique unchangable serial number for his computer. There was a tremendous potential for violation user's privacy and no good reason why they needed it in the first place. Why? A unique id could be implemented in software. The only reason to have it in hardware is to prevent the owner of the computer from changing
People didn't want them, and CPUIDs failed. Why does AMI think this is any different?
Right on!
:)
The only reason for TCPA / Palldium is to prevent the actual owner of a computer from having full access to its hardware. Any other benefit they claim is something that could be implemented in software (ex: writing an extension to the linux kernel so that it will only execute binaries signed with a certain public key).
The only reason to do all of this in hardware is to prevent the end-user from being able to modify the system as they sees fit (ex: modifying the code so that a user can sign his own program to do what he wants to with the DRM'ed err...umm TCPA'ed part of his machine.
I hope they loose a lot of money on this
People don't want crippled technology.
What a pitiful, poorly thought out metaphor.
Come on. Is that all you've got? What a condescending, pointless statement.
You already don't have "root" access to your own machine, unless you can hand code assembly language and know the registers and other particulars of your particular architecture.
Haven't you ever heard of "root" before.
Root access means full read/write permissions as well as hardware permissions. It's not the same thing as having performed a full code review on the entire system.
My point is not very complex, why don't you try and understand it?
I can read from and write to anywhere in memory or disk in my machine. The controller in my hard drive does what I want it to.
I could write machine code and access the registers if I wanted to. I have access to them. Yes, I could use that access if I wanted to, but not using that access is not the same thing as not having it, understand?
First off, there are fundamental flaws with biometric authenticaion systems that can't be solved. For example: Your fingerprints are not secret, you leave them all over the place, nor are they replacable once someone manages to get a copy of them.
/sysadmin. The only thing palladium gives you, that you couldn't do before is a protected area of the machine that you know/hope the owner of the machine can't access. (And you can only get access to that area if MS likes what you're doing.) Anything else you think palladium gives you either has been or can be implemented without it. Go ahead and give me one other thing that palladium does that can't be implemented purely in software.
Second, you don't need palladium to do any of those things you want to do as a developer
Finally, "trusted computing" does not make business sense. It doesn't make business sense because it doesn't make business sense to be forced to rely on a single vendor for anything. With palladium, it becomes trivial to make software fixes, addons, etc. only work when made by the one company who's OS has control of the palladium hardware. It doesn't make business sense to give up control over your computers.
Trusted computing is a marketing term and is very misleading. Palladium doesn't make your system hackerproof, protect you from email viruses, or add "accountability".
'Untrusted' hardware will exist so long as there's a market for it. I see no reason to get too worked up over it.
Right, because the PC market is governed by pure capitalism. There are no monopolies out there abusing their power and causing the market to do things it wouldn't otherwise do. Good, I guess there's no reason to be worried at all. (shudder)
Palladium as I understand it has NO APPLICATION for content protection. It's not a DRM system.
You clearly don't understand it at all then.
Ask youself "Why do they need to add special hardware?" Everything you're saying it's for can be done via software.
The point of Palladium is that you will not longer have "root" access to your own machine. The system is only going to trust "trusted" programs, but there's no way for you to decide if a program is trusted or not, is there? You don't get access to the key, this way the OS can stop you from running a program which copies that DRM-protected music file in the Palladium protected part of your hard disk onto a CDR. It pretty obvious that this system was designed for DRM.
Anybody who remembers the hype from the PS2's pre-release will remember exactly how much pure FUD they spread.
Hmmm...Sony spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about their own, console? Doesn't seems like something I remember them doing.
Actually I don't take a single side on the Isreal/Palestine issue. I recognize that both sides have perpetrated some pretty despicable things.
My opinion, is that the solution lies in removing Sharon (a war criminal) from power, as well as other extremists on both sides of the line.
Both sides need to stop provoking each other. They need to recognize each other's right to exist and stop killing each other. I don't want one side to "win" I want them both to stand down.
I pretty much agree with you, but not totally, and it really pisses me off when people act like the US deserved 9/11 due to its foreign policy. Maybe you didn't mean to imply this, but speaking as though these terroists are rational people trying to defend their homeland is not proper.
I also think it's not fair to characterize the US as a "school yard bully." The US does do some good things too, try not to forget about that.
Finally, on the issue of Iraq: Saddam has to go. It sounds like you're smart enough not pretend that the US has soldiers running around killing children in Iraq. You sound smart enough to know how and why those kids are really dying (from lack of food and medicine).
It's a shame that Bush is too corrupt to be trusted to do the job and it's a shame that Saddam will use any money he gets to buy weapons instead of feeding people. This only demonstates why Saddam needs to go: Saddam doesn't care about Iraq, he cares about himself. As a result, he can't be trusted, not just by the US, but by the UN or anybody else. Do you remember when Kofi Anan worked out that deal with him to allow inspectors back in? He never kept up his part of the bargain and he never planned to. He would rather kill large numbers of people or just let them die due to diseases and starvation, than loose power. You can't trust someone like that with nuclear weapons.
I think that in some cases, the US is justified in overthrowing foreign governments. What isn't justifyable is who they let gain power when they leave.
Straw man, you mean like taking parts of a comment and then only refuting part of what those parts say?
Did you read your own comment? It sums up the idea of a straw man quite nicely. Notice how you never really respond to the central points of my comment: that there are going to be people who want to hurt us even if we're nice, that terrorists should dictate US policies, etc. You choose to pick a single thing I said, that 9/11 was not justified, and misrepresent it.
You see, if you believe that 9/11 was not the way sensible human beings solve problems, then you're going to have to question whether these terrorists are sensisble human beings. If terrorists are not the most rational, psychologically-balanced individuals (pretty much a given) then you have to wonder if doing something rational would even matter to them. Get it?
In the future try not to be both clueless and condescending.
If you want to stop terrorists attacking you, first learn what is being done in your name around the world, then let your politicions know that you aren't happy with them killing children to secure better access to oil, for the benefit of their corporate "sponsors". It's a much cleaner solution that asking for log file retention.
I hate to be the first to break it to you, but terrorist aren't always the most fair, rational people out there. I understand that some US foreign policy is bad and need to be fixed, but that's not an excuse to go around killing a bunch of innocent people any more than 9/11 would have been an excuse for the US to nuke Afghanistan.
Furthermore, you have to recognize that there are always going to be a few crazies out there. Even if the US was to suddenly adopt perfect foreign policies, that every country in the world agrees with, and magically right our past wrongs, there would still be people out there who want to kill others. Part of the purpose of orginizations like the FBI is to protect us from those people. There are always going to be some of them, eliminating every last one of them is just not possible. You just can please everybody.
It's like I tell other people:
We shouldn't decide our foreign policy based on what is going to result in the least terrorism. We should decide our foreign policy is such a way that we don't turn normal people into terrorists.
These are two very different things. The first is bad (you let anyone willing to kill enough civilians have control over US foreign policy). The second is good (the US stops screwing over other countries).
Finally, a country's bad foreign policy does not justify that mass murder of civilians within that country, both in Palestine and in the US, asshole.
Columbus wasn't a true American, dumbass. Nor was he seeking freedom, except perhaps the freedom to quickly sail to Asia and make lots of money on a new trade route.
Way to not get the point.
The point is, this country is the direct result of people being willing to put themselves in harms way.
Yeah, Columbus did some lousy things, but that's not the point. The point is he had the guts to cross the Atlantic, dumbass.
Shouldn't we as true Americans
True americans value their freedom. A police state is not free.
BTW 9/11 was not the result of a lack of information problem. They had all the information they needed to stop it. 9/11 was the direct result of a failure by the FBI use properly use the information they already had. Do a little research on what we knew and when. You'll learn that we had all the info we needed to catch these guys.
The current wave of laws and privacy invasions, have just about nothing to do with preventing terrorism. They are thinly veiled ways of using the fears of unwitting Americans (like you) to give up their freedoms, so they have more power and you have less.
Try not to be such a dolt. How exactly are your server logs going to prevent another 9/11? You're going to have to stretch your imagination pretty far to come up with a way your server logs could have stopped 9/11. Now ask yourself: What other things could these server logs be used for? In the case of a site like cryptome.org, you can think of a lot of shady things the gov't could do once it gets its hands one them, most of them a lot more plausible than stopping another 9/11.
You are an embarassment to true americans. Do you think Columbus, the pilgrims, the pioneers, etc. were as terrified as you? No, they wanted freedom and were willing to risk a little safety to have it.
A supreme court judge once said that the safest societies in the world are totalitarian dictatorships.