Not really - by the looks of the article they get the ISP to copy everything on your pipe so they can hack it to bits later. If it's stored, then provided they're not idiots enough to vape the file (hey, this is government, after all) then they can just throw a few crays at it until the crypto breaks, find out which protocol spec you were using or just trawl through the data to see which ports you *were* using and start having a go at those.
I'm assuming you've not, therefore, seen some of the interesting high-speed footage of some test bomb drops. One I did see on TV ages ago was interesting - must have been terrifying to fly. Bomb drops... bomb tumbles... bomb pitches up into tailplane, destroying tailplane. The bomb did more damage to the plane than to the target...
It's sobering to read the bio on Murrow. Can you picture any reporter - and I mean/any/ reporter - taking a stand these days, in that kind of fashion? Where did all of the decent reporters go, dammit?
Re a couple of your points - not meaning to nitpick, but there's a flip side there too. Congratulations, you get to think a bit during the day if you can an IT job. Or, you have to be on the ball and not make a mistake from 0800-1800. When you have an oops moment how much does it cost? Now multiply by ten or so. As for clean air, yes am I sure it happens in some places, but my site is a textiles factory and I don't know/anyone/ without a cough. It's informative to look at the insides of the machines here even after a short time - that goes in your lungs, too. As for the rest of it, yes, you're kind of right (UK, so some issues don't apply) but it's a trade. You get more, more is expected of you.
Incidentally, I haven't done naff factory jobs for a while but I still could not say with certainty that I prefer office jobs.
I thought the US Government had many many precision and smart weapons already - the difficulty seems to be giving them a target rather than anything else.
As time goes by, I get more and more convinced that it's less power grabs and more 'cover your ass' by government. If a senator can get stupid powers to imprison somebody because he doesn't like their face and something bad happens, they can point fingers at the Feds and say "You didn't use these powers we gave you!".
Incidentally, has anybody noticed how close we are to being able to lock up someone because you don't like their face. It's disturbing when all of the arguments you used to use for "This is so obviously stupid nobody with an ounce of sense would try it" all of a sudden get undermined by, well, somebody actually going and doing it.
Um, that's not all that surprising. They're not even allowed to say who put that gag order on - you think that even if they are allowed to protest they're allowed to mention to anyone that they're doing it?
Um, before making comments along those lines, it may be worthwhile remembering who got rid of democratically-elected leaders (US overthrew an elected Iraqi president because he didn't agree way back in the day. The brits, as ever, sat back and watched - we get the benefit but not the blame that way).
Also might want to look into who provides all of these repressive governments with the kit they need to keep on repressing. Hint: you'll likely find it the yanks of the brits. The fact of the matter was that in the cold war the CIA and probably UK intelligence too regarded some drooling despot with three and a half brain cells to rub together as a better bet for running a mid-east country than anything a democracy could produce, because the democratic guy would have/his/ country's interests at heart, not US / UK
I believe that way the law lies currently, 'probably most people are doing bad things with it' is not sufficient justification to ban a piece of software. I do seem remember a recent court case about that. Also, the case was not fought on those grounds, IIRC, but rather from a perspective of legality of EULAs, which as standard seem to ask the poor bastard installing to cede rights they'd have on a £10 piece of crap from a toy store.
Why bother? It costs them less if you have to do half of their job for them. These are the people who are trying to offload most of this crap onto the Feds anyway. They are just total freeloaders.
If I was microsoft I'd want it rigged so I could let everybody in the entire world develop for Office.../except/ company X. And no, I wouldn't have to give any reason, and yes, I would put that in the EULA.
'Developing for open source, company X. Sure, our blessings. Just one thing...on an entirely unrelated note, you are no longer allowed to interoperate with office beyond using Word. Have a nice day.'
I may well be paranoid (rephrase. I bloody well am paranoid. I am also, unfortunately, right sometimes).
And for those people who are going to suggest that the whole world suddenly switches to a different office package, please just imagine a hollow laugh from me.
Aren't you, with that single step, denying yourself the objectivity necessary to recognise that sometimes the way America (or at least the American government) does things is not the best way, and therefore the opportunity to improve?
Actually, corporations used to have much less power. The first thing corporations did was to get the law changed to remove the most tiresome checks on their behaviour.
At one time, a corporation could be/required/ to prove it was acting for the public benefit to even continue existing. How badly would that chestnut screw any number of companies today?
Oh, and the reason I'm referring to corporations as persons is because they effectively are now anyway (legally they are or some such b******s). Fine, I'll play that game. If they're all persons, though, they're a bunch of complete sociopaths with no moral sense (by definition, IIRC - motivated by profit only). Don't we normally lock these kinds of people up?
This is a technology that's going to force damn near every PC on the planet into obsolescence or at the very least require a new OS. All the stuff in the middle is going to have to be changed as well, after all we can't be allowed our precious 'analog hole', can we. And who do you think is going to have to stump up - clue: it's not MS or Sony or even the government (which mostly these days seems to work to funnel taxpayer money to friendly companies but that is an entirely different debate). Oh, sure, there will be some horse-trading of a few million between ISPs and such, but that'll just get tacked on to your bill (at a 200% markup, of course) and no more will be said about it
Think of it as a new, one-off tax that will spawn (or perhaps excrete is a better word) a further tax to rent stuff you used to own.
Damn, that sounded like a flame. Must be getting low on caffeine to get that feisty.
The worst bit about the world these days is that I can scarcely spot the parody any more.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really - by the looks of the article they get the ISP to copy everything on your pipe so they can hack it to bits later. If it's stored, then provided they're not idiots enough to vape the file (hey, this is government, after all) then they can just throw a few crays at it until the crypto breaks, find out which protocol spec you were using or just trawl through the data to see which ports you *were* using and start having a go at those.
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
(Douglas Adams)
I'm assuming you've not, therefore, seen some of the interesting high-speed footage of some test bomb drops. One I did see on TV ages ago was interesting - must have been terrifying to fly. Bomb drops ... bomb tumbles ... bomb pitches up into tailplane, destroying tailplane. The bomb did more damage to the plane than to the target ...
It's sobering to read the bio on Murrow. Can you picture any reporter - and I mean /any/ reporter - taking a stand these days, in that kind of fashion? Where did all of the decent reporters go, dammit?
Um, no they didn't. It segfaults on AMDs - does say that in the fine article, iirc
Re a couple of your points - not meaning to nitpick, but there's a flip side there too. Congratulations, you get to think a bit during the day if you can an IT job. Or, you have to be on the ball and not make a mistake from 0800-1800. When you have an oops moment how much does it cost? Now multiply by ten or so. As for clean air, yes am I sure it happens in some places, but my site is a textiles factory and I don't know /anyone/ without a cough. It's informative to look at the insides of the machines here even after a short time - that goes in your lungs, too. As for the rest of it, yes, you're kind of right (UK, so some issues don't apply) but it's a trade. You get more, more is expected of you.
Incidentally, I haven't done naff factory jobs for a while but I still could not say with certainty that I prefer office jobs.
I thought the US Government had many many precision and smart weapons already - the difficulty seems to be giving them a target rather than anything else.
As time goes by, I get more and more convinced that it's less power grabs and more 'cover your ass' by government. If a senator can get stupid powers to imprison somebody because he doesn't like their face and something bad happens, they can point fingers at the Feds and say "You didn't use these powers we gave you!".
Incidentally, has anybody noticed how close we are to being able to lock up someone because you don't like their face. It's disturbing when all of the arguments you used to use for "This is so obviously stupid nobody with an ounce of sense would try it" all of a sudden get undermined by, well, somebody actually going and doing it.
I was under the impression that with people like Wolfowitz, the preferred expression should be 'The US and EU are ALLIES ... for now'
More disappointing, actually. I as under the impression intelligence was the ability to learn from /someone else's/ mistakes
Um, that's not all that surprising. They're not even allowed to say who put that gag order on - you think that even if they are allowed to protest they're allowed to mention to anyone that they're doing it?
Um, before making comments along those lines, it may be worthwhile remembering who got rid of democratically-elected leaders (US overthrew an elected Iraqi president because he didn't agree way back in the day. The brits, as ever, sat back and watched - we get the benefit but not the blame that way).
/his/ country's interests at heart, not US / UK
Also might want to look into who provides all of these repressive governments with the kit they need to keep on repressing. Hint: you'll likely find it the yanks of the brits. The fact of the matter was that in the cold war the CIA and probably UK intelligence too regarded some drooling despot with three and a half brain cells to rub together as a better bet for running a mid-east country than anything a democracy could produce, because the democratic guy would have
Ugh. Explicitly. I can type, honest.
I believe that way the law lies currently, 'probably most people are doing bad things with it' is not sufficient justification to ban a piece of software. I do seem remember a recent court case about that. Also, the case was not fought on those grounds, IIRC, but rather from a perspective of legality of EULAs, which as standard seem to ask the poor bastard installing to cede rights they'd have on a £10 piece of crap from a toy store.
Surely it's explicity there - the EULA will state that any and all documents created using this software are the property of EvilVendor, inc.
That's very specific. Nasty, but specific.
Why bother? It costs them less if you have to do half of their job for them. These are the people who are trying to offload most of this crap onto the Feds anyway. They are just total freeloaders.
Ah, this would be me being a dumbass. The one up from your earlier, if that make sense.
:)
I thought what you said was pretty much justified.
Must have more caffeine before posting next time
If I was microsoft I'd want it rigged so I could let everybody in the entire world develop for Office... /except/ company X. And no, I wouldn't have to give any reason, and yes, I would put that in the EULA.
'Developing for open source, company X. Sure, our blessings. Just one thing...on an entirely unrelated note, you are no longer allowed to interoperate with office beyond using Word. Have a nice day.'
I may well be paranoid (rephrase. I bloody well am paranoid. I am also, unfortunately, right sometimes).
And for those people who are going to suggest that the whole world suddenly switches to a different office package, please just imagine a hollow laugh from me.
Bearing in mind the now troll-rated grandparent, I think more than a little of the apparent hostility in that response was earned.
Aren't you, with that single step, denying yourself the objectivity necessary to recognise that sometimes the way America (or at least the American government) does things is not the best way, and therefore the opportunity to improve?
Actually, corporations used to have much less power. The first thing corporations did was to get the law changed to remove the most tiresome checks on their behaviour.
/required/ to prove it was acting for the public benefit to even continue existing. How badly would that chestnut screw any number of companies today?
At one time, a corporation could be
Oh, and the reason I'm referring to corporations as persons is because they effectively are now anyway (legally they are or some such b******s). Fine, I'll play that game. If they're all persons, though, they're a bunch of complete sociopaths with no moral sense (by definition, IIRC - motivated by profit only). Don't we normally lock these kinds of people up?
Hands up everyone who think that's a coincidence...
That cause being...?
Are you kidding?
This is a technology that's going to force damn near every PC on the planet into obsolescence or at the very least require a new OS. All the stuff in the middle is going to have to be changed as well, after all we can't be allowed our precious 'analog hole', can we. And who do you think is going to have to stump up - clue: it's not MS or Sony or even the government (which mostly these days seems to work to funnel taxpayer money to friendly companies but that is an entirely different debate). Oh, sure, there will be some horse-trading of a few million between ISPs and such, but that'll just get tacked on to your bill (at a 200% markup, of course) and no more will be said about it
Think of it as a new, one-off tax that will spawn (or perhaps excrete is a better word) a further tax to rent stuff you used to own.
Damn, that sounded like a flame. Must be getting low on caffeine to get that feisty.
The worst bit about the world these days is that I can scarcely spot the parody any more.
Does this mean, therefore, that WinXP does not work in the rain?