Fine for you that you insist on a narrowly focused story that doesn't fit into a larger context. But there's a few of us around that enjoy understanding stories as part of the greater world.
Perhaps you could list a few alternatives that are easy for people who aren't technically inclined, which are generally foolproof, and which don't leave forensic traces that equipped police can follow.
How about just leaving printed out flyers in a restroom? Someone did that at a local University with a bomb threat. Are you really trying to tell me that electronic communication is the only means of anonymous communication? It'll just force them to do something other than what they wanted, make anonymous communication harder,
Making it only harder won't do squat. You need to make it hard enough that it's not worth it, which is impossible.
the police are trying to make things harder for terrorists so they can't just do whatever they want to do with total simplicity.
You seem to have a strange view of the problem. This kind of system is doomed to failure. Does anyone _really_ think this will do squat to stop "The Terrorists"? "The Terrorists" will simply pick another means of anonymous communication. There's hundreds of ways to do that, and you can't stop all of them.
I will say however that I think you're missing the point. The issue at hand, alleged libel in a public forum, can be applied to just about any business.
There's lots of issues at hand here. Why do you insist we narrow the focus to just one? I'd say the culture of chiropractors is entirely relevant and part of the story. It's part of the larger context of the story, and is very interesting. Many chiropractors likely feel "repressed", as they're not generally accepted as legitimate practitioners of medicine. That likely leads to some of them being more willing to take action against those they see as "repressing" them.
I'm inclined to agree that a lot of it is just quackery. Years ago a colleague of mine went to a chiropractor, who told him his sons ear infection was because of back miss-alignment, or some such nonsense. Another friend went to a chiropractor, and he had some nonsense advice about how her sons cognitive problems could be "cured" with some nonsense (I forget exactly what is was)
Medical science doesn't always the answers to everything, or at least the answers people want. A large portion of the population has a very hard time accepting this. Much of "alternative medicine" is simply giving people an answer, or an answer better to their liking.
WalMart, TGI Friday's, and ClearChannel radio are the same everywhere.
So are Chinese restaurants. Corporate America is about as part of regional culture as a foreign restaurant is. There's PLENTY of culture that exists outside of chains. If you can't see that, I'm afraid you must be blind.
People have been free to move within the United States since its inception, and yet we still have definite regional and local identities. Each state is still able to make decisions that are best for it.
Europe is a bit different of course, and always will be. The point being that identity is inherent in a region and isn't destroyed just because people can move.
I'm also not sure that "free trade" and "protectionism" are absolutes that you either have, or don't have. For instance, I wouldn't call stopping food with Melamine in it a restriction on free trade.
So the FCC made around 20 billion dollars auctioning off the spectrum, but only allocated 1.3 billion for the coupon program? At $40/coupon, that's around 32 million coupons. I'm guessing there's more non-cable televisions than that. Something seems quite a bit wrong with the amount allocated.
The difference here is that the same joke was already published in The Onion. If you haven't heard it before, great. But if you really don't see that The Onion digging up stories from 10 years ago and reprinting them with some minor changes is kind of lame, I think that's kind of sad.
We all seem to have figured out that this system is a joke, so I won't address that.
The bigger problem is that the DHS really thinks something like this kind of system will work. We've seen several different screening systems, fingerprinting systems, etc, and they all share the same "whiz-bang technology" attribute. That is that somewhere, there's some great piece of hardware, software, or black box that's going to save us from "the terrorists" Real Soon Now. I guess I'm more than a little skeptical of this approach to the problem.
I don't know enough about the problem to know what the solution is (maybe just human operatives). But I do know enough about "whiz-bang" technology to know that it's snake oil.
It's not broken, it's just an advanced system so a developer who wants to write really fast code has to know how it works.
Presumably spoken by such a developer. That's great if you're a super-star and want to develop specifically for that machine. But what about the game development company who's looking to make a buck? Superstar developers are by definition, rare. Or maybe you ARE a superstar, and care more about cross-platform, or productivity?
Designing a system that requires the developers to be extraordinary (or at least SOME to be extrodinary) is a broken model from the game company's perspective, and from the gamers perspective. Harder to develop for = less developers = less high quality games = less money. So how is this not "broken" for anyone except the highly talented willing and able to learn the specifics of this particular system?
Are you too stupid to realize they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profit?
Are you too stupid to realize that there's more to life than "maximizing shareholder profit", and that corporations should be held to ethical standards?
Has it really become acceptable to publicly call for, and expect people to grub all the money they possibly can with no regard to the society you live in? It's a sad state of affairs when one person criticizes another for not being greedy enough. I understand corporations will try to get away with what they will, but that doesn't mean we have to berate others for being critical of said corporations for being douche-bags.
2) You're forgetting about the dumbass factor. This is the sort of thing that's fine if you know-what-you're-doing, but very dangerous if you're the average dumbass.
3) You're right, and he's right. I don't see any conflict here.
4) See 2.
5) Who the hell refuels their lawnmower at 2am, while it's running (see 2), when it's 30 below out? Everything is harder and more dangerous when it's very cold out.
I'd say the dangers here are real. They're not insurmountable, but you should be aware of them. Plugging a male-male plug from your generator into your house just sounds like you're asking for trouble.
Things like furnaces are usually hardwired into the house electrical system - so you can't just "unplug" it and plug it in to an extension to your generator.
So wire up your furnace so it plugs into an outlet. Mine is exactly like this (already done by a previous owner). It's easy enough to do yourself, and will save you a lot of effort if the power ever goes out when it's cold. As a result, many people build themselves a "male to male" extension cord
Sounds inherently dangerous. I'd rather not someone trip on an extension cord and pull out a live wire with live ends ends sticking out.
So some guy with a blog makes a post claiming that Wikipedia needs to change. I missed the part where there was a problem.
The facts are that the goal is within spitting distance. They're 97% of the way their. So what's the problem with this model?
As for the 98% dormant figure, it's irrelevant. Isn't what we care about if Wikipedia is expanding its coverage, increasing it's quality, and serving more people? The percentage of active people could be 1%, it could or it could be 50% and that wouldn't necessarily impact quality, scope, or number served.
(I'm also fairly sure quality, scope, and number served are increasing, but I have no evidence to support that).
What counts as intelligent for a dog, cat or even a bright bird like a Magpie is probably not something we'd really recognise.
Well, I think you've stretched the word "intelligence" so far it's become useless and gone beyond it's original scope. "Intelligence" is a word we've applied to ourselves, and understand in terms of ourselves. Trying to apply that word outside of its scope becomes more and more useless the further out you go. You can certainly dilute the word intelligence, but I wouldn't really pretend like you're really saying anything of value.
This whole summary is a troll. Technology businesses file many patents every year that they'll never implement. Patents are like munitions. You stockpile them in case you need to go to war, and to prevent others from attacking you. Balmer's saber rattling about Linux infringing on multiple Microsoft patents is the perfect example of this. (Though it's an example of the more sinister uses of patents).
I completely agree with everything you said and thought the same thing while reading the summary (I've also never heard of these guys). I think anyone that seems to make these ridiculous statements about mars or rocks is simply out of touch themselves.
It's pretty silly to expect that everyone is going to change their behavior immediately due to increased availability of a larger variety of goods. When cable came along and people were given a larger amount of choice of television programming viewing habits didn't change overnight, they changed over decades.
People are creatures of habit. It'd be more interesting to see if the variety of goods people buy varies with age. If so, expect that "long tail" to eventually appear as the population turns over.
So there's no incentive for me to pay extra for a more competent CA, because their competence (or lack thereof) doesn't really affect anything.
This is true. My point is really that shifting the burden of proof from one entity to the other doesn't really address the real problem. The problem isn't that one party has more interest in security than the other (sometimes true, sometimes not), it's that the weakest CA ruins it for everyone else.
I don't think that's possible, how do you know which CA that is?
With the current x509 based certs, it's not. The whole thing was based on all the CAs being "trusted".
I guess I'm starting with an idea I know to be secure (or at least doesn't have a single point of failure), and then find a way to implement that. I don't know if it's possible to implement such a system or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Fine for you that you insist on a narrowly focused story that doesn't fit into a larger context. But there's a few of us around that enjoy understanding stories as part of the greater world.
Perhaps you could list a few alternatives that are easy for people who aren't technically inclined, which are generally foolproof, and which don't leave forensic traces that equipped police can follow.
How about just leaving printed out flyers in a restroom? Someone did that at a local University with a bomb threat. Are you really trying to tell me that electronic communication is the only means of anonymous communication?
It'll just force them to do something other than what they wanted, make anonymous communication harder,
Making it only harder won't do squat. You need to make it hard enough that it's not worth it, which is impossible.
the police are trying to make things harder for terrorists so they can't just do whatever they want to do with total simplicity.
You seem to have a strange view of the problem. This kind of system is doomed to failure. Does anyone _really_ think this will do squat to stop "The Terrorists"? "The Terrorists" will simply pick another means of anonymous communication. There's hundreds of ways to do that, and you can't stop all of them.
I will say however that I think you're missing the point. The issue at hand, alleged libel in a public forum, can be applied to just about any business.
There's lots of issues at hand here. Why do you insist we narrow the focus to just one? I'd say the culture of chiropractors is entirely relevant and part of the story. It's part of the larger context of the story, and is very interesting. Many chiropractors likely feel "repressed", as they're not generally accepted as legitimate practitioners of medicine. That likely leads to some of them being more willing to take action against those they see as "repressing" them.
I'm inclined to agree that a lot of it is just quackery. Years ago a colleague of mine went to a chiropractor, who told him his sons ear infection was because of back miss-alignment, or some such nonsense. Another friend went to a chiropractor, and he had some nonsense advice about how her sons cognitive problems could be "cured" with some nonsense (I forget exactly what is was)
Medical science doesn't always the answers to everything, or at least the answers people want. A large portion of the population has a very hard time accepting this. Much of "alternative medicine" is simply giving people an answer, or an answer better to their liking.
WalMart, TGI Friday's, and ClearChannel radio are the same everywhere.
So are Chinese restaurants. Corporate America is about as part of regional culture as a foreign restaurant is. There's PLENTY of culture that exists outside of chains. If you can't see that, I'm afraid you must be blind.
People have been free to move within the United States since its inception, and yet we still have definite regional and local identities. Each state is still able to make decisions that are best for it.
Europe is a bit different of course, and always will be. The point being that identity is inherent in a region and isn't destroyed just because people can move.
I'm also not sure that "free trade" and "protectionism" are absolutes that you either have, or don't have. For instance, I wouldn't call stopping food with Melamine in it a restriction on free trade.
I see. So you're just a troll then?
So the FCC made around 20 billion dollars auctioning off the spectrum, but only allocated 1.3 billion for the coupon program? At $40 /coupon, that's around 32 million coupons. I'm guessing there's more non-cable televisions than that. Something seems quite a bit wrong with the amount allocated.
The difference here is that the same joke was already published in The Onion. If you haven't heard it before, great. But if you really don't see that The Onion digging up stories from 10 years ago and reprinting them with some minor changes is kind of lame, I think that's kind of sad.
And this matters why?
IIRC this joke is 10 years old. I think I saw it in The Onion around 10 years ago. The fact that Slashdot fell for it makes up for the old joke.
We all seem to have figured out that this system is a joke, so I won't address that.
The bigger problem is that the DHS really thinks something like this kind of system will work. We've seen several different screening systems, fingerprinting systems, etc, and they all share the same "whiz-bang technology" attribute. That is that somewhere, there's some great piece of hardware, software, or black box that's going to save us from "the terrorists" Real Soon Now. I guess I'm more than a little skeptical of this approach to the problem.
I don't know enough about the problem to know what the solution is (maybe just human operatives). But I do know enough about "whiz-bang" technology to know that it's snake oil.
It's not broken, it's just an advanced system so a developer who wants to write really fast code has to know how it works.
Presumably spoken by such a developer. That's great if you're a super-star and want to develop specifically for that machine. But what about the game development company who's looking to make a buck? Superstar developers are by definition, rare. Or maybe you ARE a superstar, and care more about cross-platform, or productivity?
Designing a system that requires the developers to be extraordinary (or at least SOME to be extrodinary) is a broken model from the game company's perspective, and from the gamers perspective. Harder to develop for = less developers = less high quality games = less money. So how is this not "broken" for anyone except the highly talented willing and able to learn the specifics of this particular system?
Are you too stupid to realize they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profit?
Are you too stupid to realize that there's more to life than "maximizing shareholder profit", and that corporations should be held to ethical standards?
Has it really become acceptable to publicly call for, and expect people to grub all the money they possibly can with no regard to the society you live in? It's a sad state of affairs when one person criticizes another for not being greedy enough. I understand corporations will try to get away with what they will, but that doesn't mean we have to berate others for being critical of said corporations for being douche-bags.
2) You're forgetting about the dumbass factor. This is the sort of thing that's fine if you know-what-you're-doing, but very dangerous if you're the average dumbass.
3) You're right, and he's right. I don't see any conflict here.
4) See 2.
5) Who the hell refuels their lawnmower at 2am, while it's running (see 2), when it's 30 below out? Everything is harder and more dangerous when it's very cold out.
I'd say the dangers here are real. They're not insurmountable, but you should be aware of them. Plugging a male-male plug from your generator into your house just sounds like you're asking for trouble.
Things like furnaces are usually hardwired into the house electrical system - so you can't just "unplug" it and plug it in to an extension to your generator.
So wire up your furnace so it plugs into an outlet. Mine is exactly like this (already done by a previous owner). It's easy enough to do yourself, and will save you a lot of effort if the power ever goes out when it's cold.
As a result, many people build themselves a "male to male" extension cord
Sounds inherently dangerous. I'd rather not someone trip on an extension cord and pull out a live wire with live ends ends sticking out.
So some guy with a blog makes a post claiming that Wikipedia needs to change. I missed the part where there was a problem.
The facts are that the goal is within spitting distance. They're 97% of the way their. So what's the problem with this model?
As for the 98% dormant figure, it's irrelevant. Isn't what we care about if Wikipedia is expanding its coverage, increasing it's quality, and serving more people? The percentage of active people could be 1%, it could or it could be 50% and that wouldn't necessarily impact quality, scope, or number served.
(I'm also fairly sure quality, scope, and number served are increasing, but I have no evidence to support that).
What counts as intelligent for a dog, cat or even a bright bird like a Magpie is probably not something we'd really recognise.
Well, I think you've stretched the word "intelligence" so far it's become useless and gone beyond it's original scope. "Intelligence" is a word we've applied to ourselves, and understand in terms of ourselves. Trying to apply that word outside of its scope becomes more and more useless the further out you go. You can certainly dilute the word intelligence, but I wouldn't really pretend like you're really saying anything of value.
My research team used it a lot and it's nearly impossible without a good RNG.
The question on my mind (and on many others I'm guessing) is why you would need a true RNG, and not a pseudo RNG.
This whole summary is a troll. Technology businesses file many patents every year that they'll never implement. Patents are like munitions. You stockpile them in case you need to go to war, and to prevent others from attacking you. Balmer's saber rattling about Linux infringing on multiple Microsoft patents is the perfect example of this. (Though it's an example of the more sinister uses of patents).
I completely agree with everything you said and thought the same thing while reading the summary (I've also never heard of these guys). I think anyone that seems to make these ridiculous statements about mars or rocks is simply out of touch themselves.
The habit is reinforced by the increasing channels by which we can see what everybody else wants and adjust our own wants to that.
I didn't miss the point, I simply disagree with it.
It's pretty silly to expect that everyone is going to change their behavior immediately due to increased availability of a larger variety of goods. When cable came along and people were given a larger amount of choice of television programming viewing habits didn't change overnight, they changed over decades.
People are creatures of habit. It'd be more interesting to see if the variety of goods people buy varies with age. If so, expect that "long tail" to eventually appear as the population turns over.
be only one business relationship, end-user verifier.
So how does the end-user know they're talking to the verifier, and not a MITM?
So there's no incentive for me to pay extra for a more competent CA, because their competence (or lack thereof) doesn't really affect anything.
This is true. My point is really that shifting the burden of proof from one entity to the other doesn't really address the real problem. The problem isn't that one party has more interest in security than the other (sometimes true, sometimes not), it's that the weakest CA ruins it for everyone else.
I don't think that's possible, how do you know which CA that is?
With the current x509 based certs, it's not. The whole thing was based on all the CAs being "trusted".
I guess I'm starting with an idea I know to be secure (or at least doesn't have a single point of failure), and then find a way to implement that. I don't know if it's possible to implement such a system or not.