They might not. This would be the chance to get in good with the local authorities, and offer your crack IT services to help in the investigation. Also, enlist the help of your bandwidth provider. They too have a vested interest in combatting this.
Since they are based in Costa Rica, presumably the Costa Rican authorities would be a little more helpful. Should I have said federales instead of 'feds'?
When an online exortionist comes a knocking, threatining a DDoS, do you pay or fight?
Presumably, they will give you some way to pay them (else what is the point?). Point the cops and or feds at that contact, and see what happens.
Extortion is extortion, be it physical or bandwidth.
If no joy from the authorities, I'm sure your local newsrag would be glad to shame the cops into doing something. Of course, if the extortionist is overseas, things might be a little difficult.
Close down public libraries and use those funds for muni broadband? That's the most insane proposal I've heard surrounding this whole concept.
You want to close down the one avenue of free (to the user) reading and research material, in favor of broadband? The barrier to entry for the library is a library card. The barrier to entry to use broadband is having and maintaining a computer.
Kids don't read enough now, and you want to cut off the library? When was the last time you read a book on your PC?
If time travel does indeed become possible, and if these potential future time travelers deign to show up at this particular event, they will know of this event by MIT or press historical records. They would also know (by the following days historical record) of the (non)presence of govt troops waiting to apprehend and interrogate them.
What happened on Boston Common, May 7 1905? Dunno, but if I were really interested, I could find out. Especially if there were a large police presence around a college party. Finding out the details from a party in 2005 from 2105 or 2205 or 3005 would presumably be easier. Especially a party aimed at the future me.
For several years in Germany, I lived in a house surrounded on 3 sides by cows and sheep. But they were there long before I moved in, so I had no reason to complain. I didn't even mind the sheep jumping the fence and coming into my yard (much), because they kept it short. But in a standard residential neighborhood, it's a little different.
And I agree with you about HOA's. Evil, psychotic entities.
If you don't want something in your line of sight then buy all the land around where you live. Otherwise fuck off. Stop telling other people what they can and can't do with their own land.
Remember that sentiment when your upwind neighbor wants to build a pig farm or a junkyard.
(not equating a pig farm with an innocuous cell phone tower, but blanket statements about land use are silly)
Re:Yeah, like the government won't be watching THA
on
Time Travelers' Convention
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Will there be an 'awesome aresenal of firepower' at the MIT campus next weekend? Highly doubtful. In either case, a time traveler from the future will know if the FBI/CIA/Army/corporate mercenaries showed up.
The correct tense might be "The government troops didn't show up, so it's safe to go."
Quite. And it works exactly the same way in the other direction. Many, many countries have tried to tell the US we should and should not to do (death penalty, Iraq, etc, etc). The US is free to accept or ignore those suggestions, just as Canada is free to accept or ignore this one.
It is equally unreasonable to think that this woman does not have a predetermined agenda against the US, and will work to portray them in the worst light possible.
If the US administration and military command structure really wanted her 'dead', why is she still breathing? They had the car stopped, in the dark, in a remote area. If there really was a plot/conspiracy to kill her, that would have been the perfect place. Instead, they rushed her to a hospital.
I'm NOT saying we should take the military's word on every little thing. But sometimes it really isn't a coverup.
He flew into the cable, not the gondola. The lift was not marked on military aviation maps, Italian or US. I can find no evidence that says they were brought back to the states "very fast". They supposedly did not know of the cable car falling until hours later back at Aviano.
An Italian judge ruled that the US military had sole jurisdiction over the proceedings.
The low altitude warning alarm was set to 800 feet. The alarm did not sound.
The pilot was found not guilty of involuntary homicide and manslaughter. Yes, he was flying too low through the mountains. Probably hotdogging a little. But it was an accident.
The only acceptable verdict to the Italians would have been guilty. Guilty of what? Manslaughter? At most it could have been the flying equivalent of 'reckless driving'.
If there is enough population density to support a frequent plane for a short distance, there is definitely enough population density to support a train for that same connection.
Would there be enough traffic to support both on the same run?
Why is the US 'behind' in high speed trains? (If 'behind' is the operative word) Because we didn't build it 50 years ago.
50-60 years ago, the US was building up its car infrastructure, and Europe and Japan were building (in the wake of WWII) their train structure. No one had cars in Europe, so inter-city trains made sense.
Reversing the intertia of 50 years is not an overnight thing.
Not sure about Trillian (don't have it installed ATM), but gAIM stores your buddy list (along with what system they are on) and account settings in regular XML files. Now tell me how that XML couldn't be read and used by an external malicious program. Something that has its own sendmail and messaging components.
A couple of our clients are rabid about corporate espionage. So much so that our people working on their accounts have to sign NDA's from them, work in a separate area, and other such lunacy. One of their requirements is to have some sort of email monitoring on our end.
And while you may say 'just don't do business with them', that's pretty impossible. They are the two biggest on the planet in their field. To the tune of pumping us tens of millions $$ per year.
The security aspect here is the clueless user, not the tool. This does not automagically propagate. If you got an unknown link from someone in Trillian that says "Click here!" and you did click, then another popup that asks if you want to install 'SomeFunkyProgram', would you?
No, of course not. You have a bit of a clue. But that's exactly what happened here. The only way Trillian or GAIM would be 'more secure' than MSN Messenger (in this instance) is if they disallowed clickable links in IM's, and/or had no stored contact list. Both of which would be major reductions in functionality.
GAIM and Trillian DO have major functionality benefits over AIM/MSN/Yahoo (notably, multi protocol) but a clueless user is a clueless user, no matter what client they use.
Slashdot Mirror
Instead of FBI, read Costa Rican Aauthorities, or Interpol's cybercrime unit.
They might not. This would be the chance to get in good with the local authorities, and offer your crack IT services to help in the investigation. Also, enlist the help of your bandwidth provider. They too have a vested interest in combatting this.
Since they are based in Costa Rica, presumably the Costa Rican authorities would be a little more helpful. Should I have said federales instead of 'feds'?
Presumably, they will give you some way to pay them (else what is the point?). Point the cops and or feds at that contact, and see what happens.
Extortion is extortion, be it physical or bandwidth.
If no joy from the authorities, I'm sure your local newsrag would be glad to shame the cops into doing something. Of course, if the extortionist is overseas, things might be a little difficult.
The actual driving/navigating/not crashing (in the car sense) is not.
Better driver training from the start. Everything else follows naturally.
You want to close down the one avenue of free (to the user) reading and research material, in favor of broadband? The barrier to entry for the library is a library card. The barrier to entry to use broadband is having and maintaining a computer.
Kids don't read enough now, and you want to cut off the library? When was the last time you read a book on your PC?
[MBA tool]"I want to come in in the morning, push a button, and have the program distribute all my stuff."
[me]"If I could make it do that, I could make it push its own button, and the company wouldn't need you anymore."
[MBA tool]"Oh."
WARNING - Jackson, Michael is on this planet.
If time travel does indeed become possible, and if these potential future time travelers deign to show up at this particular event, they will know of this event by MIT or press historical records. They would also know (by the following days historical record) of the (non)presence of govt troops waiting to apprehend and interrogate them.
What happened on Boston Common, May 7 1905? Dunno, but if I were really interested, I could find out. Especially if there were a large police presence around a college party. Finding out the details from a party in 2005 from 2105 or 2205 or 3005 would presumably be easier. Especially a party aimed at the future me.
And I agree with you about HOA's. Evil, psychotic entities.
Remember that sentiment when your upwind neighbor wants to build a pig farm or a junkyard.
(not equating a pig farm with an innocuous cell phone tower, but blanket statements about land use are silly)
The correct tense might be "The government troops didn't show up, so it's safe to go."
Same with Iraq ignoring the pleas of the Kuwaiti gov't a few years ago.
Quite. And it works exactly the same way in the other direction. Many, many countries have tried to tell the US we should and should not to do (death penalty, Iraq, etc, etc). The US is free to accept or ignore those suggestions, just as Canada is free to accept or ignore this one.
If the US administration and military command structure really wanted her 'dead', why is she still breathing? They had the car stopped, in the dark, in a remote area. If there really was a plot/conspiracy to kill her, that would have been the perfect place. Instead, they rushed her to a hospital.
I'm NOT saying we should take the military's word on every little thing. But sometimes it really isn't a coverup.
He flew into the cable, not the gondola.
The lift was not marked on military aviation maps, Italian or US.
I can find no evidence that says they were brought back to the states "very fast". They supposedly did not know of the cable car falling until hours later back at Aviano.
An Italian judge ruled that the US military had sole jurisdiction over the proceedings.
The low altitude warning alarm was set to 800 feet. The alarm did not sound.
The pilot was found not guilty of involuntary homicide and manslaughter. Yes, he was flying too low through the mountains. Probably hotdogging a little. But it was an accident.
The only acceptable verdict to the Italians would have been guilty. Guilty of what? Manslaughter? At most it could have been the flying equivalent of 'reckless driving'.
Would there be enough traffic to support both on the same run?
50-60 years ago, the US was building up its car infrastructure, and Europe and Japan were building (in the wake of WWII) their train structure. No one had cars in Europe, so inter-city trains made sense.
Reversing the intertia of 50 years is not an overnight thing.
I've found it MUCH easier to record my own LP's into mp3/OGG/format of choice. No problem with dicked up recordings from dubious sources.
Well...it IS a classified military payload. Maybe they know something we don't.
Not sure about Trillian (don't have it installed ATM), but gAIM stores your buddy list (along with what system they are on) and account settings in regular XML files. Now tell me how that XML couldn't be read and used by an external malicious program. Something that has its own sendmail and messaging components.
And while you may say 'just don't do business with them', that's pretty impossible. They are the two biggest on the planet in their field. To the tune of pumping us tens of millions $$ per year.
Isn't that the very definition of a for-profit company?
No, of course not. You have a bit of a clue. But that's exactly what happened here. The only way Trillian or GAIM would be 'more secure' than MSN Messenger (in this instance) is if they disallowed clickable links in IM's, and/or had no stored contact list. Both of which would be major reductions in functionality.
GAIM and Trillian DO have major functionality benefits over AIM/MSN/Yahoo (notably, multi protocol) but a clueless user is a clueless user, no matter what client they use.