Quoth CmdrTaco: With the US Presidential Election coming up, we've had a lot of story submissions that we would like to post, but they don't fit very well on the Slashdot main page. To address this, we'll be running special political coverage between now and the election in our new Politics subsection of Slashdot.
The whole purpose of this section is to cover the upcoming US election. A red-white-and-blue theme is not particularly controversial in this case.
Maybe there is something about the way legitimate IDs are made that they don't want to reveal.
If that is the case, then they'd have to at least reveal it to those people checking IDs (otherwise, what's the point?). Given the conventional wisdom regarding the intelligence of the average airport security employee, that's not exactly keeping things secret.
Quoth the beast (emph. mine):
On behalf of the respective owners of the exclusive rights to the copyright
ed material at issue in this notice, we hereby state, pursuant to the Digit
al Millennium Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 512, that
the information in this notification is accurate and that we have a good
faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not
authorized by the copyright owners, their respective agents, or the law.
Anyone know how loosely interpretable the term "good faith belief" is? It seems like it would be trivial to prove (say, in court) that they obviously do NOT have any good faith belief, and that this is simply the result of some mindless spidering program. In a perfect world, you'd be able to force them into spending a little more money policing themselves, and every little bit counts, right?
Why is it that censorware suddenly becomes good when it's implemented by an open source program?
Censorware suddenly becomes good when it's implemented (and controlled) by a parent or legal guardian, instead of by a blanket legislative mandate. It's even better when said parent is level-headed enough not to go overboard with the filtering.
It's no different than having a parent control which TV shows, movies, books, etc they choose to expose their children to.
But the poor people aren't being *denied* anything, either - it just happens that those with more money/resources/connections have an edge on those who don't.
Say your house was robbed, and you happened to witness the event taking place. Therefore, the police are more able to capture the thief based on your description. Now, say you had a camcorder on you and recorded the whole thing - even better. Replace the camcorder with a sophisticated (and expensive) security system - even better.
At what point do we stop saying that people with more resources (in this case, money) are reaping an "unfair" advantage over those who don't have said resources? It IS a good thing to have the ability to hire a PI. Not everything is about "balancing the scales" ad infinitum.
But the issue here is not comparable - the guy in question wasn't reading the emails while they were "in transit" a la a postal worker glancing at a postcard coming through. A more accurate analogy is saying the guy went up to every user's physical mail box, opened it, rifled through the contents (whether they were postcards or not) and used the data he gained for his own purposes.
Whether the email is encrypted or cleartext, the bottom line is that you have to go to a lot more trouble to read someone's email than to read someone's postcards. And since email is sorted, routed, and delivered without human intervention, there *IS* a valid expectation of privacy.
Next thing you know these bastards are going to find a way to stick automated speed traps throughout the state and just mail you a ticket if you're caught speeding.
They've been doing exactly that in most parts of Europe for over a decade now, and it's nothing that even remotely resembles invasion of privacy. Unless, of course, you have an expectation of privacy while barrelling down a school zone at 60+?
It's a safety measure that is impartial, accurate, and allows police officers to use their time more productively (rather than sitting on the side of the road for a whole day, waiting for someone to speed)
Sure can, that's my job;)
Backdoor remains in new firmware from Netgear
While Netgear may have reacted quickly to the reports of a backdoor in the firmware of their Access Point WG602 by issuing a firmware update, the backdoor itself is nevertheless still present -- this time simply with a new username and password. They were less than creative with the user name, extending the original "super" to "superman". With the password, Netgear has apparently taken the first forum reports of the security hole seriously and changed the phrase to "21241036". To whom this telephone number belongs, however, Netgear Germany could not say - nobody there knew anything about the "new" problem, first wanting to fully acquaint themselves with the issue.
Another firmware update is not yet available, and regardless, the question remains whether users will be eager to apply yet another patch after the second screw-up. According to lawyers, this could open the door for end users to return the hardware to the vendor and demand a refund. While they may still try to fix the problem, at the chances of are pretty low.
You did read the article right? It does specifically target that.
"to announce a bill that would make it illegal to film someone for a 'lewd or lascivious purpose' without that person's consent."
I doubt many activists are going around making sex tapes about the tobacco industry.
Slashdot Mirror
It's kind of like "Nothing to see here, move along." except in reverse. Neat, huh?
1. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
2. An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.
3. An active pastime; recreation.
May not fit either of the first two perfectly, but the third seems a good match.
With the US Presidential Election coming up, we've had a lot of story submissions that we would like to post, but they don't fit very well on the Slashdot main page. To address this, we'll be running special political coverage between now and the election in our new Politics subsection of Slashdot.
The whole purpose of this section is to cover the upcoming US election. A red-white-and-blue theme is not particularly controversial in this case.
Of course, you're right: failure to prevent the worst terrorist attack in world history is no reason for us to reexamine our policies. ;)
If that is the case, then they'd have to at least reveal it to those people checking IDs (otherwise, what's the point?). Given the conventional wisdom regarding the intelligence of the average airport security employee, that's not exactly keeping things secret.
On behalf of the respective owners of the exclusive rights to the copyright ed material at issue in this notice, we hereby state, pursuant to the Digit al Millennium Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 512, that the information in this notification is accurate and that we have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owners, their respective agents, or the law.
Anyone know how loosely interpretable the term "good faith belief" is? It seems like it would be trivial to prove (say, in court) that they obviously do NOT have any good faith belief, and that this is simply the result of some mindless spidering program. In a perfect world, you'd be able to force them into spending a little more money policing themselves, and every little bit counts, right?
But seriously, did anyone else shiver when they read that?
Censorware suddenly becomes good when it's implemented (and controlled) by a parent or legal guardian, instead of by a blanket legislative mandate. It's even better when said parent is level-headed enough not to go overboard with the filtering.
It's no different than having a parent control which TV shows, movies, books, etc they choose to expose their children to.
But the poor people aren't being *denied* anything, either - it just happens that those with more money/resources/connections have an edge on those who don't.
Say your house was robbed, and you happened to witness the event taking place. Therefore, the police are more able to capture the thief based on your description. Now, say you had a camcorder on you and recorded the whole thing - even better. Replace the camcorder with a sophisticated (and expensive) security system - even better.
At what point do we stop saying that people with more resources (in this case, money) are reaping an "unfair" advantage over those who don't have said resources? It IS a good thing to have the ability to hire a PI. Not everything is about "balancing the scales" ad infinitum.
But the issue here is not comparable - the guy in question wasn't reading the emails while they were "in transit" a la a postal worker glancing at a postcard coming through. A more accurate analogy is saying the guy went up to every user's physical mail box, opened it, rifled through the contents (whether they were postcards or not) and used the data he gained for his own purposes.
Whether the email is encrypted or cleartext, the bottom line is that you have to go to a lot more trouble to read someone's email than to read someone's postcards. And since email is sorted, routed, and delivered without human intervention, there *IS* a valid expectation of privacy.
Can you people speak english? Correction. That's "Can you people speaks English?"
They've been doing exactly that in most parts of Europe for over a decade now, and it's nothing that even remotely resembles invasion of privacy. Unless, of course, you have an expectation of privacy while barrelling down a school zone at 60+?
It's a safety measure that is impartial, accurate, and allows police officers to use their time more productively (rather than sitting on the side of the road for a whole day, waiting for someone to speed)
Oops, sorry for the lack of line breaks. Thank God my job doesn't involve HTML formatting....
Sure can, that's my job ;)
Backdoor remains in new firmware from Netgear
While Netgear may have reacted quickly to the reports of a backdoor in the firmware of their Access Point WG602 by issuing a firmware update, the backdoor itself is nevertheless still present -- this time simply with a new username and password. They were less than creative with the user name, extending the original "super" to "superman". With the password, Netgear has apparently taken the first forum reports of the security hole seriously and changed the phrase to "21241036". To whom this telephone number belongs, however, Netgear Germany could not say - nobody there knew anything about the "new" problem, first wanting to fully acquaint themselves with the issue.
Another firmware update is not yet available, and regardless, the question remains whether users will be eager to apply yet another patch after the second screw-up. According to lawyers, this could open the door for end users to return the hardware to the vendor and demand a refund. While they may still try to fix the problem, at the chances of are pretty low.
You did read the article right? It does specifically target that. "to announce a bill that would make it illegal to film someone for a 'lewd or lascivious purpose' without that person's consent." I doubt many activists are going around making sex tapes about the tobacco industry.
Read the alt.usage.english FAQ
(sorry for off-topicness)