Darn, I really should stop e-banking and shopping online, then.
But, seriously, Facebook profiles are (by default) visible to a lot of people, but not everyone. That does not mean one can reasonably expect the information to be kept from a specific person: we are talking about how easy it is to simply ask someone on that person's school network to look at their profile. On the other hand, Facebook has a Privacy Policy, and it is reasonable to expect them to folow it.
Wait a minute, are you seriously suggesting that Jerry Pournelle would falsify a letter from John Carmack about explosives? I fully understand being weary of your sources, but I think these guys are trustworthy.
Very true, a lot of lower level stuff is the same and shares patches. I was more thinking of the GUI applications that a user would be using. Even there, say, a media player, is probably using the same back-end code to play a video or song no matter which media player you are using (if it's a video, probably ffmpeg). (Hey, they could have buffer overflow bugs.)
As I understand it, buffer overflow checking is not done everywhere because it is slow and sometimes the programmer can be sure that there will not be an overflow. On the other hand, using bug checking tools like the one mentioned a few days ago being used on FireFox is a good idea. Either that or having a language/library designed such that you have to explicitly request no checking in the cases where it is safe and speed matters.
Portability is currently handled by distro maintainers. I assume they are mostly just setting the right compile options for where files go and possibly editing the code so those options exist. Malware could be confused by a different directory structure in a different distro. (Different processors are also a possible problem for malware, but nowadays almost everything other than high-powered servers are x86/amd64.)
Yes, if you can make perfect security software, that would be wonderful, but, in the real world, programs have bugs. ZoneAlarm is not necessarily any better than Norton or McAfee. It may even be worse. (I don't use any of them, I wouldn't know.) The important part is it is different. An attacker cannot realistic plan for dozens to hundreds of unique system setups. You mention F/OSS, but different Linux distros can be very different, and there are plenty of classes of applications with competing offerings (KDE/Gnome/XFCE/etc., Gecko/KHTML, Gaim/Kopete). Sure, they do share most of the Linux kernel, but even there every distro has their own set of kernel patches.
Interesting ideas. First, Gore was not running in 2004, and second, the Iraq War started in 2003. I assume you meant "electing Gore in 2000".
Anyway, presidential elections have the complication of the electoral college. For congressional seats, you are voting directly, so it at least feels like you have more power over who wins the race.
It's still interesting to me that you find this a privacy issue in such a PUBLIC medium.
Wait a minute, I specifically said that it is not a privacy issue. The information was already out there for the people who wanted it.
The thing is that previously the user controlled everything in their profile. If they want it to look a certain way, they went into edit profile and changed it. (Technically, items tagged by other users about that user may also appear, but that can be disabled in the privacy settings.) Now Facebook shows the information you enter plus metadata about changes to that information. The user's profile page now looks different from the user's own settings about what it should look like.
Re:Consumers don't care about their privacy
on
The Death of Privacy
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· Score: 1
If you do not use some encryption (PGP, etc.) on your e-mail, then your provider is free to read your e-mail whether the provider is Google, AOL, or the Mom and Pop ISP down the street. Of course, if you do not use encryption, then it is not too difficult to intercept your e-mail on the way to its destination and read it. There should be no expectation of privacy on unencrypted e-mail (or any unencrypted) communications because such an expectation is ridiculous. On the other hand, I expect my e-mail provider to not be just giving my e-mails to whoever asks and to be using encryption in as many steps as the process as possible. As a note, I use GMail over HTTPS as my primary e-mail.
Your point that there is "no way for the viewer" to know implies an anonymous and somewhat disinterested 'viewer'. I suspect that your complaint is the opposite, that the 'viewers' you don't want to see the 'broke up' are far from anonymous and disinterested.
Yes, you, unlike the other repliers got my point, even if you decided that I meant something different. Obviously, if someone is "stalking" you on Facebook or one of your friends views your profile often, they will notice changes even if they are not highlighted in yellow (like they are now). If you do not want that group to see your information, then it is not on Facebook. On the other hand, the "disinterested 'viewer'" would not know about the changes, and there is no reason for them to be given that information.
The best analogy I can think of is the Internet Archive. Normally, if you go to a website, you see the current version of the website. If you look at the website often, you will know what has changed. If you don't, you could have a bot that spiders the entire internet for changes... or you would just know what the website looks like currently. I think we can agree that the Internet Archive adds to the amount of information available on the internet.
As a note, I, personally, do not have any privacy problems with the changes because I do not post anything online that could be considered in the least private. If you look at my Facebook profile you would learn that I play video games and read sci-fi... you could probably figure that out just by Googling "AnyoneEB" and seeing what forums I have accounts on. On the other hand, the news feed, for the most part, gives me information that I do not want to see. I do not care if one of my friends is rephrasing their interests lists. The best solution would be to simply have a list of checkboxes for types of information that will appear about your changes in your friend's feeds/your minifeed and have another list of checkboxes for what info changes you want to see about other people.
A change from "in a relationship with so-and-so" to anything else (except, I assume, "in an open relationship with so-and-so") is interpreted as "broke up with so-and-so", even if it is simply a change to not display any relationship status.
No, you do not understand. It is one thing to have one's profile say "In a Relationship with So and So" one day and "Single" the next, with no way for the viewer to know what it said previously without having viewed that profile earlier. It is different to show "Person broke up with So and So" on their profile. Stop saying that the information was already public. It was not. This is adding more information which a large number of users do not want shared.
Yes, the information is public. I have never I posted anyone online about myself that I would care if everyone knew. On the other hand, Facebook now publically displays changes in information. Previously, only the current version of someone's profile was visible on Facebook. Now, if something is changed, then the current version and what was changed is visible. As a simple example, if someone removes "Seinfeld" from their list of favorite TV shows, then it is publically announced to all of their friends, even though "Seinfeld" no longer appears in their current profile. No one cares about announcements of favorite TV shows, but this is a change which adds to the amount of information visible on facebook.com, not just a new interface for that information.
He did not say that copyright is bad. He said that the current copyright laws allow for a ridiculously long copyright period. Or, in other words, he agrees with you that a balance must be struck between the rights of the creators and the public domain, just he believes the balance in current US law gives too much to the creators. I agree.
There is no "unalienable right" to prevent others from copying your works. The government grants that right to creators in order "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (US Constitution). In other words, the end of copyright does not signify a gift from the creator to the public domain. Copyright is a sort of "loan" from the public domain to the creator to encourage the creator to publish.
I agree that copyright is necessary, but currently the majority of the money made off a published work is made very soon after the work is published. Another 90 years of protection will not encourage creators. Obviously, the term needs to be long enough such that the average consumer would not simply wait it out (a year or two), but short enough the he would see it in the public domain in his lifetime.
Or you could use Privoxy, which does the same thing, but is open source and cross-platform. I still use Proxomitron because I have a lot of filters written for it that specifically affect ads on the sites that I use. Also, Privoxy's GUI is a bit harder to use.
I want a laptop with two mouse buttons. (Three would be nice, but it is rare, and middle click by pressing both at the same time is not a problem.) When Apple can provide that, I will look at their offerings. I do not care if it looks like one button, but really has two buttons under it or something like that, so the normal user would never even know it was a two button mouse. Other than that, Apple seems like the right vendor for a lightweight, but powerful x86 laptop.
Ooh, good thing Google is non-evil and currently has no apps that scan your file contents. Hey, wait, that isn't evil.
I agree, the microphone thing sounds like a stupid idea. I would not want it installed, and I do not think anyone else would either, but it is not like Google is suggesting that they stream your private conversations to their database. The analysis is done client-side. It just sends "Unidentifiable people talking." or "24 is playing on the TV."
I agree. Serial-USB dongles are a pain, but I do not think that computer has serial, only parallel. (Can't tell for sure, but I assume the port next to the DVI is VGA/HD-15, not serial.)
Another poster pointed out that they probably do not intend to have humans manually tag (via this game) every single image they spider. Instead, they are collecting information so they can "teach" a neural net/whatever AI to tag images by itself.
They probably weigh tags that match higher, at least. They probably also weigh tags from players with a high score higher. I assume they expect some level of trolling. It would be stupid to expect all of the data they get to be perfectly valid, but they can reasonably expect most of it to be good, especially since the game encourages correct tagging.
Slashdot Mirror
Darn, I really should stop e-banking and shopping online, then.
But, seriously, Facebook profiles are (by default) visible to a lot of people, but not everyone. That does not mean one can reasonably expect the information to be kept from a specific person: we are talking about how easy it is to simply ask someone on that person's school network to look at their profile. On the other hand, Facebook has a Privacy Policy, and it is reasonable to expect them to folow it.
And on Facebook the profile is by default "private" to anyone not on the same network(s) that you are. I believe you and the GP are agreeing.
Wait a minute, are you seriously suggesting that Jerry Pournelle would falsify a letter from John Carmack about explosives? I fully understand being weary of your sources, but I think these guys are trustworthy.
Very true, a lot of lower level stuff is the same and shares patches. I was more thinking of the GUI applications that a user would be using. Even there, say, a media player, is probably using the same back-end code to play a video or song no matter which media player you are using (if it's a video, probably ffmpeg). (Hey, they could have buffer overflow bugs.)
As I understand it, buffer overflow checking is not done everywhere because it is slow and sometimes the programmer can be sure that there will not be an overflow. On the other hand, using bug checking tools like the one mentioned a few days ago being used on FireFox is a good idea. Either that or having a language/library designed such that you have to explicitly request no checking in the cases where it is safe and speed matters.
Portability is currently handled by distro maintainers. I assume they are mostly just setting the right compile options for where files go and possibly editing the code so those options exist. Malware could be confused by a different directory structure in a different distro. (Different processors are also a possible problem for malware, but nowadays almost everything other than high-powered servers are x86/amd64.)
Yes, if you can make perfect security software, that would be wonderful, but, in the real world, programs have bugs. ZoneAlarm is not necessarily any better than Norton or McAfee. It may even be worse. (I don't use any of them, I wouldn't know.) The important part is it is different. An attacker cannot realistic plan for dozens to hundreds of unique system setups. You mention F/OSS, but different Linux distros can be very different, and there are plenty of classes of applications with competing offerings (KDE/Gnome/XFCE/etc., Gecko/KHTML, Gaim/Kopete). Sure, they do share most of the Linux kernel, but even there every distro has their own set of kernel patches.
Interesting ideas. First, Gore was not running in 2004, and second, the Iraq War started in 2003. I assume you meant "electing Gore in 2000".
Anyway, presidential elections have the complication of the electoral college. For congressional seats, you are voting directly, so it at least feels like you have more power over who wins the race.
Or just install the user agent switcher extension, which will provide a GUI for the same thing.
- the company itself
As other posters mentioned, the GCN had two ports for that, so the logical implication is that the Wii's port is different.
Wait a minute, I specifically said that it is not a privacy issue. The information was already out there for the people who wanted it.
The thing is that previously the user controlled everything in their profile. If they want it to look a certain way, they went into edit profile and changed it. (Technically, items tagged by other users about that user may also appear, but that can be disabled in the privacy settings.) Now Facebook shows the information you enter plus metadata about changes to that information. The user's profile page now looks different from the user's own settings about what it should look like.
If you do not use some encryption (PGP, etc.) on your e-mail, then your provider is free to read your e-mail whether the provider is Google, AOL, or the Mom and Pop ISP down the street. Of course, if you do not use encryption, then it is not too difficult to intercept your e-mail on the way to its destination and read it. There should be no expectation of privacy on unencrypted e-mail (or any unencrypted) communications because such an expectation is ridiculous. On the other hand, I expect my e-mail provider to not be just giving my e-mails to whoever asks and to be using encryption in as many steps as the process as possible. As a note, I use GMail over HTTPS as my primary e-mail.
Yes, you, unlike the other repliers got my point, even if you decided that I meant something different. Obviously, if someone is "stalking" you on Facebook or one of your friends views your profile often, they will notice changes even if they are not highlighted in yellow (like they are now). If you do not want that group to see your information, then it is not on Facebook. On the other hand, the "disinterested 'viewer'" would not know about the changes, and there is no reason for them to be given that information.
The best analogy I can think of is the Internet Archive. Normally, if you go to a website, you see the current version of the website. If you look at the website often, you will know what has changed. If you don't, you could have a bot that spiders the entire internet for changes... or you would just know what the website looks like currently. I think we can agree that the Internet Archive adds to the amount of information available on the internet.
As a note, I, personally, do not have any privacy problems with the changes because I do not post anything online that could be considered in the least private. If you look at my Facebook profile you would learn that I play video games and read sci-fi... you could probably figure that out just by Googling "AnyoneEB" and seeing what forums I have accounts on. On the other hand, the news feed, for the most part, gives me information that I do not want to see. I do not care if one of my friends is rephrasing their interests lists. The best solution would be to simply have a list of checkboxes for types of information that will appear about your changes in your friend's feeds/your minifeed and have another list of checkboxes for what info changes you want to see about other people.
A change from "in a relationship with so-and-so" to anything else (except, I assume, "in an open relationship with so-and-so") is interpreted as "broke up with so-and-so", even if it is simply a change to not display any relationship status.
No, you do not understand. It is one thing to have one's profile say "In a Relationship with So and So" one day and "Single" the next, with no way for the viewer to know what it said previously without having viewed that profile earlier. It is different to show "Person broke up with So and So" on their profile. Stop saying that the information was already public. It was not. This is adding more information which a large number of users do not want shared.
Yes, the information is public. I have never I posted anyone online about myself that I would care if everyone knew. On the other hand, Facebook now publically displays changes in information. Previously, only the current version of someone's profile was visible on Facebook. Now, if something is changed, then the current version and what was changed is visible. As a simple example, if someone removes "Seinfeld" from their list of favorite TV shows, then it is publically announced to all of their friends, even though "Seinfeld" no longer appears in their current profile. No one cares about announcements of favorite TV shows, but this is a change which adds to the amount of information visible on facebook.com, not just a new interface for that information.
He did not say that copyright is bad. He said that the current copyright laws allow for a ridiculously long copyright period. Or, in other words, he agrees with you that a balance must be struck between the rights of the creators and the public domain, just he believes the balance in current US law gives too much to the creators. I agree.
There is no "unalienable right" to prevent others from copying your works. The government grants that right to creators in order "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (US Constitution). In other words, the end of copyright does not signify a gift from the creator to the public domain. Copyright is a sort of "loan" from the public domain to the creator to encourage the creator to publish.
I agree that copyright is necessary, but currently the majority of the money made off a published work is made very soon after the work is published. Another 90 years of protection will not encourage creators. Obviously, the term needs to be long enough such that the average consumer would not simply wait it out (a year or two), but short enough the he would see it in the public domain in his lifetime.
Or you could use Privoxy, which does the same thing, but is open source and cross-platform. I still use Proxomitron because I have a lot of filters written for it that specifically affect ads on the sites that I use. Also, Privoxy's GUI is a bit harder to use.
I want a laptop with two mouse buttons. (Three would be nice, but it is rare, and middle click by pressing both at the same time is not a problem.) When Apple can provide that, I will look at their offerings. I do not care if it looks like one button, but really has two buttons under it or something like that, so the normal user would never even know it was a two button mouse. Other than that, Apple seems like the right vendor for a lightweight, but powerful x86 laptop.
None, that's why I do not think anyone would want it installed.
Ooh, good thing Google is non-evil and currently has no apps that scan your file contents. Hey, wait, that isn't evil.
I agree, the microphone thing sounds like a stupid idea. I would not want it installed, and I do not think anyone else would either, but it is not like Google is suggesting that they stream your private conversations to their database. The analysis is done client-side. It just sends "Unidentifiable people talking." or "24 is playing on the TV."
Fixed that for you. I am not sure I agree though.
That could be a problem: IQ scores are normalized to have a median of 100.
Good thing tests like that have never been abused in the past.
I agree. Serial-USB dongles are a pain, but I do not think that computer has serial, only parallel. (Can't tell for sure, but I assume the port next to the DVI is VGA/HD-15, not serial.)
Another poster pointed out that they probably do not intend to have humans manually tag (via this game) every single image they spider. Instead, they are collecting information so they can "teach" a neural net/whatever AI to tag images by itself.
They probably weigh tags that match higher, at least. They probably also weigh tags from players with a high score higher. I assume they expect some level of trolling. It would be stupid to expect all of the data they get to be perfectly valid, but they can reasonably expect most of it to be good, especially since the game encourages correct tagging.