Have you ever been rejected for family medical coverage because your child had a urinary infection once, and a test to make sure it wasn't serious? I have.
And I've HAD a urinary infection once, with tests to make sure it wasn't serious, and I've NEVER been denied coverage. Not once. I had a shithead insurance company refuse to pay my deductable when I was injured on their client's property, and I've had a shithead insurance company try to get their grubby fingers on the deductable reimbursement I finally got out of shithead number one, but that didn't stop the hospital from fixing me up. Sounds like there are good companies and bad companies, which is pretty much normal for the world.
Insurance companies investigate claims, the IRS audits tax payers, etc.
So you want to create a brother to the IRS to investigate "milage tax" claims? Oh brother.
The point is: we don't need to monitor everyone's movement ALL OF THE TIME to effectively implement something like this.
If you are going to tax them based on where and when they drive, YES YOU DO. The only time you don't need to monitor everyone's movement is when they aren't moving. Otherwise, you need to know which road they are on, if any, and what time it is so you can apply the correct tax rate.
Its simply not worth the invasive loss of privacy to move it from GOOD ENOUGH to ALMOST PERFECT.
It's simply not worth the loss of privacy and creation of government departments necessary to manage it to move it from NON EXISTANT to A BLIGHT ON SOCIETY.
I don't have the stats for this city. I have personal observation made over a period of almost two decades.
So yes, EVEN in this town, EVEN near "the campus" (PSU? UP? I'm assuming downtown by PSU).
No, not in this town, not near campus. No, this is not Portland. There are other places in Oregon besides Portland, I hate to tell you.
Doesn't make it any less illegal. Last time I checked the speed limits were pretty much set, not flexible based on perceived outdated limits.
I didn't say it wasn't illegal, I said there was an order of magnitude difference between the two activities. Do I need to explain what an order of magnitude means? Ok -- call speeding on the interstate where everyone on your side of the road is going the same direction and at the same speed a 1; failing to stop in a downtown intersection where everyone is expecting you to stop a 10. That "10" is an order of magnitude greater than "1". Both are positive numbers, but one is ten times worse than the other. But it doesn't matter, the fact that OTHER people break OTHER laws is no excuse for bicycle riders to deliberately and routinely break laws, too.
Damn, I should have used everyone else as an excuse to my actions when the cop stopped me.
Well guess what? Every time you or any other bike rider use the "car drivers break the law too" excuse for blowing through a stop sign, that's exactly what you are doing. You are using everyone else as an excuse for your actions. You don't think car drivers should do that, do you? Why then should bike riders do it?
It's true, they do, but it's a lot harder to speed on a bike.
Bullshit. Even as out of shape as I am, it is trivial to bust the speed limits in town here. I don't expect, and I didn't say, that you were doing it out on the freeway at 65. If you can't get up to 20 in a 15 zone, you should hang up your helmet and get a wheelchair, because people around this town are doing it on a regular basis. And the speed limit at a stop sign is exactly ZERO, which is routinely, deliberately broken by the vast majority of bike riders I see.
No, they aren't, but if I fuck up while biking, I stand a much greater chance of dying and they (maybe) have a dent in their vehicle.
Oh, please. You've never seen a car t-boned at an intersection because they failed to stop, have you? "A dent in their vehicle" is the least of their problems. Yes, if a car driver "fucks up" by not stopping at a stop sign, they risk death, too. And they risk killing someone else. Just like YOU risk killing someone else when you blow a stop sign. I've already mentioned it here; the bike rider who ran down a pedestrian in a crosswalk, putting the ped in the hospital with serious injuries, but not getting a ticket for anything. Why do you ignore the damage that bike riders to do other people? Don't you care?
I'll stop spouting when you go on a bike ride with me and see how it is on the other side and stop spouting nonsense yourself,
I don't need to ride with you to "see how it is", I ride, too. I know how nice it is to blow through stop signs because it's much easier than stopping. I didn't say it wasn't convenient to ignore the law, just that it's still technically illegal while being de-facto perfectly acceptable.
You're ignoring all the law violating that drivers do...
Bullshit. I've admitted that car drivers break the law. It's IRRELEVANT. You can't blame your deliberate violation of the law on the fact the someone else somewhere in the state might be breaking a law now, too. If you don't stop for a stop sign, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW. Period. End of debate. If you DELIBERATELY choose not to stop for a stop sign, you are WILLFULLY endangering other people who expect you to follow the rules of the road. There is no "well I was just..." exception. There is no "well, HE was speeding..." exception.
The view that people who don't have insurance, or can't afford healthcare should die when they get ill shows the callous disregard for human life, and treatment of people as commodities only to be kept if economically viable that is characteristic of communism.
Well, isn't it good then that nobody is saying that people who can't afford healthcare should die? Isn't it good that they GET the healthcare to keep them alive, even if they can't pay for it?
The problem is not providing life-saving procedures to those who need it. It's providing an open-door free health care system where every uninsured goomba doesn't have to care if his illness is trivial and will go away by itself in a day or two, he can go to the emergency room and get it taken care of for free. The problem is a government-run CF where doctors are told how much they can charge for everything, so they have no incentive to upgrade equipment or even stay in practice while hemoraging money.
The REAL problem is a chief executive who is smart enough to know very well the effects his plans will have on private health care and employers, smart enough to know that if he told the truth nobody would support his plans, but unethical enough to choose to lie to get his agenda accomplished.
Yes, you're the very strong good guys, and it's probably your green-ranger like presence which keeps the rest of the largely-free world unmolested, and we're very grateful, but do you really need 12 capital aircraft carriers?
You don't sound so grateful, and you don't get to make those decisions. In fact, since you seem to be admitting you are not in the US, what the fuck are you complaining about?
Think about it: every weekday, most months, for 13 years almost every American child has to be supervised and taught by college-educated adults for 6 hours.
Well, that's just incorrect. There is no law that says parents must be college educated to home-school their children. Almost every US child IS taught the way you say, but not "almost every American child" HAS to be taught that way. Wouldn't it be nice if the people had a choice in the matter?
These are all western, capitalistic societies.
Marginally capitalistic, and taxed heavily. Not hugely productive, and not a pleasant place to live.
I wrote: "Unlike countries with socialized medicine systems where you can't get medical treatment because there is a waiting line longer you can survive."
It doesn't have to be that way. Someone pays for quality care now (and still turns a profit) so the money exists.
That's right, it doesn't HAVE to be that way, it's just that's what happens when you have the government running the health care system and giving it away to anyone who walks in the door. Hawaii learned the lesson. Yes, some people PAY for quality care because they can pay the taxes AND for the medical care, too, but aren't we supposed to be talking about all the poor US people who can't afford insurance in the first place? Where do THEY get the money to see a black-market doctor when the free one is too busy to deal with their appendicitis or cancer?
Just what good is your "free health care" if you can't get in to see the doctor unless you go to the US and pay for it yourself? Is that really "free"? And remember, those who can't get an appointment to see a doctor in a socialized medicine country aren't prevented from seeing him because they can't pay, it's because there simply isn't enough "free care" to go around to everyone who wants it.
Like you said, the only money the state has is that which it collected from taxpayers. So get urban Americans out of their gas guzzlers and tax the savings out of their pockets.
Spoken like a true communist. If they don't spend it on gasoline so they can go to work every day, take it away from them in taxes so they can't spend it on anything.
Tell that to Massachusetts, where you're required by law to carry health insurance.
The fact that there are stupid government people in Mass doesn't change the fact that it should be your right not to have to buy insurance if you don't want to.
And from what I hear, this law isn't going over so well with the people who are having to pay for it.
I am a cyclist, and I'm sure you hate how slow I ride my bicycle as you blow by me, passing illegally.
It is not illegal to pass a bicyclist, no matter how slowly they are going. That's what bike lanes are for -- you get a lane, the car gets a lane, everyone should be happy. Except, apparently, you.
Yet you get angry if I break a law?
No, I get angry when you willfully and deliberately violate a simple, basic law that has no exceptions for how many wheels you are using (for n>0), claim that it's ok because other people break some other laws, and then claim the right to decide for yourself which traffic laws you should have to follow and which you don't need to.
Yes, that's the argument here in this area now. Bicyclists want the right to decide if they NEED to stop at stop signs and to just blow through if they decide they don't need to stop. I'd love to get that kind of consideration as a car driver, but nobody in their right mind would ever think of passing a law that says stop signs don't mean "stop" for cars. And yet bikers expect it to be that way even when the law doesn't say it.
And I bet you also hate how fast I drove my sports car and ride my motorcycle.
I don't give a fuck how fast you drive your sports car or ride your bike, unless you are doing it on my street where children are playing and there is a 25 MPH speed limit, or you are doing 95 on the freeway and endangering everyone around you by swerving into other people's lanes and cutting them off. And as long as you accept the responsibility for the tickets you get for doing it and not whine at 200 dB about how you should have the right to break whatever laws you don't think should apply to you.
Good thing you're smart enough to recognize that you're perfect and everybody else is an asshole.
And since there are many, many times the number of cars on the road than cyclists,...
Not in this town. Not near the campus where I see most of the bikes and flagrant violations.
I'm sure more cars every day pull "California stops",
Ahhh, yes, the ubiquitous "drivers break the law too" excuse that makes bicyclists as pure as the driven snow. Doesn't work that way. Most cars stop. Most bicyclists do not. Those that make "California stops" are at least recognizing there IS a stop sign and that there is a law that says they have to do something. Those bicyclists that bust the stop at full speed (even sometimes speeding up to beat the car traffic through) don't.
Not to mention speeding, which is illegal but EVERYONE does it anyways.
As if bicyclists never speed. As if a driver speeding somewhere somehow absolves a bicyclist who blows the stop at a busy intersection, endangering the pedestrians as well as himself. As if there wasn't an order of magnitude difference between a driver going five over on an interstate where everyone is going the same speed and the road was designed for twenty over the current limits, and a bicyclist speeding up to blow through a stop sign in a busy downtown where everyone else is expected to stop and the design was for everyone to stop.
I also try and be a good cyclist and follow the rules when I'm biking around motor vehicles, because I don't want to get killed by something that weighs 3,000 lbs more than me.
As if the driver of that 3000 pound vehicle is just looking for ways to kill you. Stop spouting nonsense and stop trying to excuse the vast majority of your fellow bike riders who simply refuse to obey a simple law, instead expecting every car on the road to protect them from themselves and demanding special rights to pick and choose what laws they will obey.
YOU may bike to avoid problems with cars, but I can assure you that you are in the vast minority, at least in this city. There is a significant proportion that seem to love confrontations and pushing their luck.
I wasn't replying to the summary. I was replying to the specific things I quoted.
Also, health care should be entirely funded by the state.
Citation required. Why? And don't you dare forget, or try to hide, the fact that "the state" has no money that it hasn't taken away from the taxpayers. So, in essence, you are saying, people who HAVE jobs and money should pay for health care for those who don't. From those according to their abilities to those according to their needs?
It's unbelievable that people can't get medical treatment because they can't afford it.
Yes, it's unbelievable because it doesn't happen. Unlike countries with socialized medicine systems where you can't get medical treatment because there is a waiting line longer you can survive.
So people started buying insurance so that other people will pay part of their medical expenses in an emergency.
That is a false representation of the insurance industry and the reason people buy insurance. People buy insurance IN CASE they need medical treatment, not to force other to pay for their treatment. Most people buy insurance EXPECTING and HOPING never to need to collect; that reasoning cannot be driven by the expectation of collecting more than you pay in.
So is it really that much of a leap to charge everyone and extend coverage to everyone,
Yes. If you want to choose not to have insurance, it should be your right. If you want to work for a company that doesn't provide it, that's your right. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government is required to provide free medical care to everyone. If you think that's only because doctors did not exist in colonial times and the founders just overlooked the matter, think again.
Yes obviously we can't even come close to affording it,
Yes, obviously, so the result will be rationing and shortages and decisions by government desk-jockeys what procedures will be paid for and what won't, and people who need expensive tests won't be able to get them because there isn't enough money to buy the hardware to do the tests...
What a great way to keep the world's best medical care functional.
By the way, this is not conjecture. It's observable fact. Hawaii recently implemented free medical care for all residents under 18. They had to cancel the program because they ran out of money and facilities. It seems that all the parents who WERE paying for health insurance for their kids stopped paying and joined the free program.
Also consider Oregon, the leader of the pack in government run health care. Under the Oregon health plan, the state decides what is paid for and what isn't, and if the plan runs low on money, they simply stop paying for the more expensive procedures. You want to complain about insurance companies allegedly deciding what procedures to approve (not once in my life has an insurance company overridden the decisions of my doctor, so I say "alleged"), you think it's better to have unelected civil servants who have their own health plans telling you what can and can't be done for you?
We pay for healthcare and then we ask if we can afford things like everyone owning a car instead of mass transit,
The day that the government provides free cars to everyone is the day you can make such a ludicrous statement like what you just did. Yes, if the government was providing free cars to everyone, I'd say they'd be better off paying for healthcare. Since they aren't, it's a stupid and dishonest argument to say they ought to be paying for health instead of cars.
Part of Obama's health care reform plan is to make it illegal for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition. Unbelievable that it's currently legal
Why shouldn't it be legal? Otherwise, what is to stop someone who has chosen not to have insurance (spending his money on other things like cars and boats and fast women) from realizing he's just developed a medical problem and then buying the least amount of insurance he needs to get it taken care of?
You do realize that "insurance" isn't supposed to be some kind of discount medical service provider, don't you? It's supposed to be a gamble -- if you don't need it, that's great and your premiums helped pay for someone who did, but if you do, it covers you based on other people who didn't need it.
Allowing people to wait until they are sick to buy insurance is like... something to do with a car. How about, like letting someone sitting at the blackjack table wait to see that he's got 21 and the dealer busts before he has to put up a bet on that hand. What casino could survive that kind of operation? What kind of insurance company could survive if every new client showed up with a known condition that was going to cost more to deal with than the one-year premium they could charge?
The answer: only a federally funded free health care "insurance" program, and that's only because EVERYONE will be REQUIRED to pay for everyone else's "insurance".
And yes, it is DISHONEST to claim that such a system won't cause private insurance companies to go out of business and cause people to lose the coverage they already have. It is a LIE to claim that people will be able to keep the same coverage they have, because they can't keep coverage with a company that doesn't exist anymore.
So unless employers start asking for employees' complete medical history, the submitter's fears would be baseless
Employers will have nothing to do with it. Once the feds start handing out "free" health care, they will have no reason to offer health insurance as a benefit of employment, so nobody will have employer-provided insurance. Everyone who has a private plan paid for by his employer will lose it, and every private insurance company that handles those plans will go bankrupt or into some other line of business.
Even if "Obama's plan" never passes, the employer still has nothing to do with it. As soon as Jimmy with the pre-existing condition walks into the doctor's office expecting treatment now that he's got health insurance, the insurance company will get the history.
Now what SHOULD be illegal is for an insurance company to drop a client who has a condition. That's stacking the deck the wrong way. That's saying the casino can kick someone who is winning out just for winning. Oh, wait, they CAN kick you out for winning. Oh well, analogies are analogies because they aren't identical, just similar.
No, to me, your post sounds like typical road rage: the road belongs to me, and everyone else on it is a raging idiot who should be shot.
Everyone else? No, many people, especially those in cars, follow the laws. Some don't. Some go the wrong way around traffic circles. Some do run stop signs. They're wrong.
Now count the number of bicyclists who break the law on a regular basis. The ones who come to a stop sign crossing a busy road and instead of stopping like the law requires, swerve over a couple of feet and ride through the crosswalk as if they were pedestrians. That puts not only themselves but the pedestrians in that crosswalk in danger.
The ones I really love are the ones who approach the main road from a side-street (with a stop sign for them) at full speed, while I'm going through that intersection, and instead of stopping or even slowing down, they make a sharp right turn into the bike lane. Someday one of them will hit a piece of gravel in the road, or some dirt, and lose control, sliding themselves under my car. They'll be dead or disabled, and it won't be my fault, but that won't make me feel any better about it, and it won't keep the rabid anti-car nuts from harassing me for the rest of my life.
No, it's not "road rage based on owning the road", it's anger that those who are supposed to share the road with me are breaking the laws and putting not only themselves but me in danger, and they do it on a regular basis with no reason to expect repercussions -- as if THEY owned the road and I better get out of THEIR way. So, you have it exactly backwards.
I'm pretty sure also you're part of the idiots who sit in traffic school and think they're perfect drivers,...
I stop at stop signs, I stop for peds. Not a perfect driver, but I'll compare my record with nearly every bicyclist I've ever seen on the road.
And a bicyclist does not have more rights a car (although a pedestrian does), they are supposed to be treated the same as any other vehicle on the road.
Well, they are SUPPOSED to be treated the same, but the reality is much, much different. Maybe you don't live in Oregon so you don't know what goes on here.
If as many cars simply ignored as many stop signs as bicyclists do, there would be cop cars monitoring every intersection just waiting to write tickets. The last time a cop gave a bicyclist a ticket for ignoring a stop sign here, the papers filled with rage that the cop was wasting his time enforcing a law that shouldn't exist.
I don't know about Portland's packs of cyclists, but they do the same thing in Eugene. They plan events intended to block the roads (the LAW says they are to ride single file on the right, you know) to annoy and harass drivers. Not long ago, they did this on a major bridge and they hindered an ambulance going to a medical emergency. Did anyone get ticketed? Yeah, right.
Locally, a distracted SUV driver ran over a bicyclist. Yes, bad thing. She got ticketed (properly) and the papers filled with rage about her arrogant disregard for human life. (Because she drives a car, she automatically has an arrogant disregard for human life, according to our bicyclist pals.) About a day later, a BICYCLIST ran down a PEDESTRIAN IN A CROSSWALK, putting the pedestrian in the hospital with major injuries. (In case you don't know Oregon law, ALL vehicles MUST STOP for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and crosswalks exist at intersections even if they aren't marked...) Did the bicyclist get a ticket for his arrogant disregard for human life? Of course not. Did his fellow bicyclists condemn him? They were too busy making excuses for him to ever say anything bad. (It was dark out. The ped wasn't wearing reflective clothing. It was rainy. The bike's headlight wasn't strong enough to see him... Everything they used as an excuse just proved the bicyclist was going too fast for conditions -- a ticketable offense for car drivers.)
No, I don't think you can honestly say that bicycle riders (more than a very small handful) believe they are supposed to follow the same laws every other vehicle is, or that they are even close to being treated by law enforcement as if they are supposed to.
The fuel tax effectively charges more for vehicles that are heavier, and thus do more damage to the road.
It also charges more for cars that have poor gas milage. For example, an unmaintained vehicle of one model will pay more than one that is well maintained, even though they both do the same amount of damage to the road.
You can also cheat on odometers by disconnecting the speedometer cable, but that leaves one vulnerable to speeding tickets.
I have a GPS in my car that tells me my speed more accurately than any mechanical speedometer can. The difference is that _I_ and _I alone_ control the data recorded from that GPS (none!), and do not have to depend on the generosity and good will of the government to keep my driving information secret.
Then read the odometer. It is already a crime to tamper with it.
First, I think you will find that it is only a crime to tamper with it when it comes time to report the milage for a sale. IANAL, so don't quote me.
But more important, you missed the central idea of this plan. You get taxed EXTRA for driving where and when the government decides you shouldn't be driving. In Oregon, that's I5 and I205 and I405 in Portland rush hour. And other streets. Instead of building to meet capacity using the already-collected gas taxes, the gas taxes are going elsewhere and the streets are getting packed. How do you stop that? Keep people from driving! They can't force people to ride the useless MAX trains, so they need some other way of forcing them off the streets.
Also, driving on your own property is not taxable. How can it be? None of the gas tax will EVER be used to maintain your driveway or farmland, even in places where it IS sometimes used to maintain roads.
In the Oregon proposal, since it is a STATE tax, you also don't pay the tax when you drive outside Oregon. People near the edges sometimes spend a great deal of time outside Oregon (except for the west edge -- the roads in the Pacific are few and far between). Especially around the 4th of July, when everyone drives into Washington to buy fireworks. If this becomes a federal nightmare, then you'll need to know which state you were in because the state rates will almost certainly differ.
No, just reading the odometer isn't enough. It will require logging every mile and every minute and every location you drive, by computer, to be dumped into government computers every time you refuel.
this wwould allow us to have variable tax rates on various roads. Higher congestion could lead to higher taxes encouraging people to car pool, use mass transit, etc.
This requires the constant recording of not only how many miles you drive but where AND when you drive them. It will be a MANDATORY requirement that the government know where your car was at all times.
It is this fact that the Oregon DOT could not bother to admit when they were doing this testing. I know one of the people who was involved in this testing, and she simply could not understand why this tracking was necessary.
She is an otherwise very bright person, but she could not understand that making the amount of money collected by the government depend on WHERE and WHEN you were driving would REQUIRE the government to know WHERE AND WHEN you were driving in order to calculate the correct tax.
Won't it be enough to just have the on-board computer calculate the amount? That would a require a complete and accurate and constantly updated database of EVERY ROAD in the United States and the tax status of every road. And if the on-board system did the calculation, there would be no way of logging or verification, or questioning the charge.
Further, the data has to be logged to catch potential cheats. You know, those people who simply put tinfoil over the GPS antenna...
ODOT claimed that the information about where and when people were driving wouldn't be available; guess how long after the next "Amber" before that data suddenly IS recoverable from YOUR car, and IS used in a trial to convict someone? Just think of the CHILDREN!
Gasoline taxes are bad enough as it is, considering that many of them aren't used to fund the road system anyway. Adding a milage tax is insult to injury. And if you think a tax will GO AWAY if a milage tax is implemented, then I've got some great ocean-front property in Wyoming to sell you.
As for the idea another poster floated that this will convince people to switch to electric or alternative energy vehicles, think again. A mile is a mile is a mile. You'll pay by the mile whether you are in a hybrid or electric or hydrogen vehicle. Sorta like having toll roads everywhere, even where the roads are never maintained!
Blumenaur is a nitwit. A result of Oregon's liberal ELF-huggers. The idea was stupid and won't be accepted by Oregon residents; it's still stupid when he pushes for a federal version.
I'm perfectly fine with that, and you're the one inferring meaning where I gave none whatsoever in a factual sentence. Sometimes discussion is meant to encourage reaction,
Yes, a statement like "focus your rage upon the USPO" is meant to encourage reaction, and the reason you want to encourage rage is because they have procedures to deal with insane inventors. Your meaning is clear; it requires no great leaps of inferrence. Don't tell people to "focus their rage" on a system that you are "perfectly fine with".
They aren't stigmatizing inventors as being insane, they are making a sensible statement that someone who is legally unable to enter into contracts can still benefit from their inventions and the patent system by having the patent issued to a guardian. Just what value to the public is there in granting a patent to someone who cannot manage that patent and perhaps license production of the invention?
I think pretty well everyone would agree that it was antiquated if it said "if the inventor is a woman, the application for patent may be made by a guardian or husband...."
Everyone would pretty much agree that there would be no purpose in such a rule, since women aren't prevented from entering into contracts or otherwise benefiting from the granting of a patent. If the most beneficial thing a woman could do with a patent is wipe her ass with it, it would be quite proper for the patent office to allow her guardian to be granted the patent in her stead.
Those who are legally insane have limits on what they can do, and creating corporations to manufacture useful new products or signing contracts to license their patents are just two of them.
O, I know! I'll patent the dot. I will get rich sleeping with all people of the world buying licenses from me!
You, sir, are a five-digit slashdot user. There ARE no people sleeping with you, much less people sleeping with you who are buying licenses to use a period. (That's because I have patented the period, which I license to people for less than what you charge for "the dot". And I license it to half the population for a very small amount. If you are one of the people who hasn't paid your period license, contact me... those cramps are the "crippleware" version you downloaded for free.)
By the time either of these solutions comes to market, you'll be able to just upload existing MP3s to a phone with open firmware, and use the phone's CPU to decode the MP3s for playback.
You mean, like, TODAY?
Well, ok, last year? My Moto W490 plugs into a mini-USB, looks like a USB stick, I drag mp3's onto it, and then I play them.
I can even have arbitrary mp3s as my ringtones. Even old time radio shows. When someone calls me, my phone doesn't "beep" or "braaaap", it goes "I was a communist for the FBI...".
Actually, I would expect that this applies a whole lot less to species that reproduce asexually because while mutations still occur, you do not get an opportunity to see that mutation mix and match with other combinations of genes, only clones. For example, cell 1 with mutation A and cell 2 with mutation B isn't going to breed...
In short, this article doesn't apply to the normal/. reader...
If you are in fact talking about the NAT and not about the firewall, then the DMZ test should be completely valid. A DMZ is "part of" neither a NAT nor a Firewall on a basic level.
That's right. DMZ is not part of NAT. Your "DMZ test" doesn't test NAT. It would test the security of having a DMZ. Thanks for admitting that.
In that scenario, please list the "security side benefits" your target machine would enjoy from taking advantage of NAT services but no Firewall services.
I've already listed them. YOU cannot touch the systems I have behind a NAT router because YOU cannot route packets to their non-routable addresses and my NAT router ignores any connections YOU try to make to the routable address it uses. YOU cannot port scan my systems, YOU cannot make a brute-force attempt to log in. YOU cannot connect to my ftp server and use the welcome string to detect a buggy server and crack into it, you cannot do the same with my Sendmail 4 server, or another service I'm using locally. YOU cannot take advantage of any older system I happen to reattach to the net, nor can you crack a fresh, unpatched installation of XP I am working on. YOU simply can't get to the system to touch it, while it can still reach out and get updates.
In fact, I don't need to care if NFS has more holes than swiss cheese, YOU can't talk to my NFS mount demon to take advantage of that. I don't need to care if I have no root password on half of my systems, YOU can't get a login prompt or port connection to take advantage of it. I don't need to care if remote X lets you keystroke monitor my sessions, because YOU cannot connect to any of my X servers to use it.
YOU cannot do ANYTHING to my systems -- unless I make a connection TO YOU, and if I do that then the firewall would not protect me, either. No, perhaps NAT wasn't designed as a security system, but it has enough properties of one that it is stupid to claim that it doesn't provide any security.
Even IF a DMZ was part of NAT, NAT has prevented YOU from touching ANY OTHER of my systems, even ones that have password-less root accounts and open SSH ports. YOU couldn't talk to anything but the one computer I guard carefully, and you can be sure it won't allow you to do anything, either.
Now, if you are arguing that NAT doesn't provide security because you can deliberately and stupidly misconfigure it to provide no security, then Duh! Of course, you need to realize that you can do the same to firewalls, so firewalls, in your opinion, must not provide security, either.
Please refer to Fig. 1a: "Whoooosche";3
Whooooosche yourself, bitch. If you can't be civil, go bother someone else. If you expect to be gratuitously insulting and then excuse it by claiming a "whoosh", then you really do need to go bother someone who cares.
The argument seems to be that somehow dropping PPC support is acceptable, because they've been discontinued,
Tell that to my boss, who just bought a new Mac to replace his old one. Can't just connect the two and let the magic update happen, he's got to update every damn thing by hand. His old one is a PPC, new one whatever the hell it is they are selling these days.
And the "magic update" process complains not that the old system is PPC, but that it doesn't run OS X, which is a lie.
Slashdot Mirror
And I've HAD a urinary infection once, with tests to make sure it wasn't serious, and I've NEVER been denied coverage. Not once. I had a shithead insurance company refuse to pay my deductable when I was injured on their client's property, and I've had a shithead insurance company try to get their grubby fingers on the deductable reimbursement I finally got out of shithead number one, but that didn't stop the hospital from fixing me up. Sounds like there are good companies and bad companies, which is pretty much normal for the world.
So you want to create a brother to the IRS to investigate "milage tax" claims? Oh brother.
The point is: we don't need to monitor everyone's movement ALL OF THE TIME to effectively implement something like this.
If you are going to tax them based on where and when they drive, YES YOU DO. The only time you don't need to monitor everyone's movement is when they aren't moving. Otherwise, you need to know which road they are on, if any, and what time it is so you can apply the correct tax rate.
Its simply not worth the invasive loss of privacy to move it from GOOD ENOUGH to ALMOST PERFECT.
It's simply not worth the loss of privacy and creation of government departments necessary to manage it to move it from NON EXISTANT to A BLIGHT ON SOCIETY.
I don't have the stats for this city. I have personal observation made over a period of almost two decades.
So yes, EVEN in this town, EVEN near "the campus" (PSU? UP? I'm assuming downtown by PSU).
No, not in this town, not near campus. No, this is not Portland. There are other places in Oregon besides Portland, I hate to tell you.
Doesn't make it any less illegal. Last time I checked the speed limits were pretty much set, not flexible based on perceived outdated limits.
I didn't say it wasn't illegal, I said there was an order of magnitude difference between the two activities. Do I need to explain what an order of magnitude means? Ok -- call speeding on the interstate where everyone on your side of the road is going the same direction and at the same speed a 1; failing to stop in a downtown intersection where everyone is expecting you to stop a 10. That "10" is an order of magnitude greater than "1". Both are positive numbers, but one is ten times worse than the other. But it doesn't matter, the fact that OTHER people break OTHER laws is no excuse for bicycle riders to deliberately and routinely break laws, too.
Damn, I should have used everyone else as an excuse to my actions when the cop stopped me.
Well guess what? Every time you or any other bike rider use the "car drivers break the law too" excuse for blowing through a stop sign, that's exactly what you are doing. You are using everyone else as an excuse for your actions. You don't think car drivers should do that, do you? Why then should bike riders do it?
It's true, they do, but it's a lot harder to speed on a bike.
Bullshit. Even as out of shape as I am, it is trivial to bust the speed limits in town here. I don't expect, and I didn't say, that you were doing it out on the freeway at 65. If you can't get up to 20 in a 15 zone, you should hang up your helmet and get a wheelchair, because people around this town are doing it on a regular basis. And the speed limit at a stop sign is exactly ZERO, which is routinely, deliberately broken by the vast majority of bike riders I see.
No, they aren't, but if I fuck up while biking, I stand a much greater chance of dying and they (maybe) have a dent in their vehicle.
Oh, please. You've never seen a car t-boned at an intersection because they failed to stop, have you? "A dent in their vehicle" is the least of their problems. Yes, if a car driver "fucks up" by not stopping at a stop sign, they risk death, too. And they risk killing someone else. Just like YOU risk killing someone else when you blow a stop sign. I've already mentioned it here; the bike rider who ran down a pedestrian in a crosswalk, putting the ped in the hospital with serious injuries, but not getting a ticket for anything. Why do you ignore the damage that bike riders to do other people? Don't you care?
I'll stop spouting when you go on a bike ride with me and see how it is on the other side and stop spouting nonsense yourself,
I don't need to ride with you to "see how it is", I ride, too. I know how nice it is to blow through stop signs because it's much easier than stopping. I didn't say it wasn't convenient to ignore the law, just that it's still technically illegal while being de-facto perfectly acceptable.
You're ignoring all the law violating that drivers do ...
Bullshit. I've admitted that car drivers break the law. It's IRRELEVANT. You can't blame your deliberate violation of the law on the fact the someone else somewhere in the state might be breaking a law now, too. If you don't stop for a stop sign, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW. Period. End of debate. If you DELIBERATELY choose not to stop for a stop sign, you are WILLFULLY endangering other people who expect you to follow the rules of the road. There is no "well I was just..." exception. There is no "well, HE was speeding..." exception.
in order to push your anti-cycl
Well, isn't it good then that nobody is saying that people who can't afford healthcare should die? Isn't it good that they GET the healthcare to keep them alive, even if they can't pay for it?
The problem is not providing life-saving procedures to those who need it. It's providing an open-door free health care system where every uninsured goomba doesn't have to care if his illness is trivial and will go away by itself in a day or two, he can go to the emergency room and get it taken care of for free. The problem is a government-run CF where doctors are told how much they can charge for everything, so they have no incentive to upgrade equipment or even stay in practice while hemoraging money.
The REAL problem is a chief executive who is smart enough to know very well the effects his plans will have on private health care and employers, smart enough to know that if he told the truth nobody would support his plans, but unethical enough to choose to lie to get his agenda accomplished.
Yes, you're the very strong good guys, and it's probably your green-ranger like presence which keeps the rest of the largely-free world unmolested, and we're very grateful, but do you really need 12 capital aircraft carriers?
You don't sound so grateful, and you don't get to make those decisions. In fact, since you seem to be admitting you are not in the US, what the fuck are you complaining about?
Well, that's just incorrect. There is no law that says parents must be college educated to home-school their children. Almost every US child IS taught the way you say, but not "almost every American child" HAS to be taught that way. Wouldn't it be nice if the people had a choice in the matter?
These are all western, capitalistic societies.
Marginally capitalistic, and taxed heavily. Not hugely productive, and not a pleasant place to live.
I wrote: "Unlike countries with socialized medicine systems where you can't get medical treatment because there is a waiting line longer you can survive."
It doesn't have to be that way. Someone pays for quality care now (and still turns a profit) so the money exists.
That's right, it doesn't HAVE to be that way, it's just that's what happens when you have the government running the health care system and giving it away to anyone who walks in the door. Hawaii learned the lesson. Yes, some people PAY for quality care because they can pay the taxes AND for the medical care, too, but aren't we supposed to be talking about all the poor US people who can't afford insurance in the first place? Where do THEY get the money to see a black-market doctor when the free one is too busy to deal with their appendicitis or cancer?
Just what good is your "free health care" if you can't get in to see the doctor unless you go to the US and pay for it yourself? Is that really "free"? And remember, those who can't get an appointment to see a doctor in a socialized medicine country aren't prevented from seeing him because they can't pay, it's because there simply isn't enough "free care" to go around to everyone who wants it.
Like you said, the only money the state has is that which it collected from taxpayers. So get urban Americans out of their gas guzzlers and tax the savings out of their pockets.
Spoken like a true communist. If they don't spend it on gasoline so they can go to work every day, take it away from them in taxes so they can't spend it on anything.
Tell that to Massachusetts, where you're required by law to carry health insurance.
The fact that there are stupid government people in Mass doesn't change the fact that it should be your right not to have to buy insurance if you don't want to.
And from what I hear, this law isn't going over so well with the people who are having to pay for it.
It is not illegal to pass a bicyclist, no matter how slowly they are going. That's what bike lanes are for -- you get a lane, the car gets a lane, everyone should be happy. Except, apparently, you.
Yet you get angry if I break a law?
No, I get angry when you willfully and deliberately violate a simple, basic law that has no exceptions for how many wheels you are using (for n>0), claim that it's ok because other people break some other laws, and then claim the right to decide for yourself which traffic laws you should have to follow and which you don't need to.
Yes, that's the argument here in this area now. Bicyclists want the right to decide if they NEED to stop at stop signs and to just blow through if they decide they don't need to stop. I'd love to get that kind of consideration as a car driver, but nobody in their right mind would ever think of passing a law that says stop signs don't mean "stop" for cars. And yet bikers expect it to be that way even when the law doesn't say it.
And I bet you also hate how fast I drove my sports car and ride my motorcycle.
I don't give a fuck how fast you drive your sports car or ride your bike, unless you are doing it on my street where children are playing and there is a 25 MPH speed limit, or you are doing 95 on the freeway and endangering everyone around you by swerving into other people's lanes and cutting them off. And as long as you accept the responsibility for the tickets you get for doing it and not whine at 200 dB about how you should have the right to break whatever laws you don't think should apply to you.
Good thing you're smart enough to recognize that you're perfect and everybody else is an asshole.
Not everybody, just you.
Not in this town. Not near the campus where I see most of the bikes and flagrant violations.
I'm sure more cars every day pull "California stops",
Ahhh, yes, the ubiquitous "drivers break the law too" excuse that makes bicyclists as pure as the driven snow. Doesn't work that way. Most cars stop. Most bicyclists do not. Those that make "California stops" are at least recognizing there IS a stop sign and that there is a law that says they have to do something. Those bicyclists that bust the stop at full speed (even sometimes speeding up to beat the car traffic through) don't.
Not to mention speeding, which is illegal but EVERYONE does it anyways.
As if bicyclists never speed. As if a driver speeding somewhere somehow absolves a bicyclist who blows the stop at a busy intersection, endangering the pedestrians as well as himself. As if there wasn't an order of magnitude difference between a driver going five over on an interstate where everyone is going the same speed and the road was designed for twenty over the current limits, and a bicyclist speeding up to blow through a stop sign in a busy downtown where everyone else is expected to stop and the design was for everyone to stop.
I also try and be a good cyclist and follow the rules when I'm biking around motor vehicles, because I don't want to get killed by something that weighs 3,000 lbs more than me.
As if the driver of that 3000 pound vehicle is just looking for ways to kill you. Stop spouting nonsense and stop trying to excuse the vast majority of your fellow bike riders who simply refuse to obey a simple law, instead expecting every car on the road to protect them from themselves and demanding special rights to pick and choose what laws they will obey.
YOU may bike to avoid problems with cars, but I can assure you that you are in the vast minority, at least in this city. There is a significant proportion that seem to love confrontations and pushing their luck.
I wasn't replying to the summary. I was replying to the specific things I quoted.
Also, health care should be entirely funded by the state.
Citation required. Why? And don't you dare forget, or try to hide, the fact that "the state" has no money that it hasn't taken away from the taxpayers. So, in essence, you are saying, people who HAVE jobs and money should pay for health care for those who don't. From those according to their abilities to those according to their needs?
It's unbelievable that people can't get medical treatment because they can't afford it.
Yes, it's unbelievable because it doesn't happen. Unlike countries with socialized medicine systems where you can't get medical treatment because there is a waiting line longer you can survive.
So people started buying insurance so that other people will pay part of their medical expenses in an emergency.
That is a false representation of the insurance industry and the reason people buy insurance. People buy insurance IN CASE they need medical treatment, not to force other to pay for their treatment. Most people buy insurance EXPECTING and HOPING never to need to collect; that reasoning cannot be driven by the expectation of collecting more than you pay in.
So is it really that much of a leap to charge everyone and extend coverage to everyone,
Yes. If you want to choose not to have insurance, it should be your right. If you want to work for a company that doesn't provide it, that's your right. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government is required to provide free medical care to everyone. If you think that's only because doctors did not exist in colonial times and the founders just overlooked the matter, think again.
Yes obviously we can't even come close to affording it,
Yes, obviously, so the result will be rationing and shortages and decisions by government desk-jockeys what procedures will be paid for and what won't, and people who need expensive tests won't be able to get them because there isn't enough money to buy the hardware to do the tests...
What a great way to keep the world's best medical care functional.
By the way, this is not conjecture. It's observable fact. Hawaii recently implemented free medical care for all residents under 18. They had to cancel the program because they ran out of money and facilities. It seems that all the parents who WERE paying for health insurance for their kids stopped paying and joined the free program.
Also consider Oregon, the leader of the pack in government run health care. Under the Oregon health plan, the state decides what is paid for and what isn't, and if the plan runs low on money, they simply stop paying for the more expensive procedures. You want to complain about insurance companies allegedly deciding what procedures to approve (not once in my life has an insurance company overridden the decisions of my doctor, so I say "alleged"), you think it's better to have unelected civil servants who have their own health plans telling you what can and can't be done for you?
We pay for healthcare and then we ask if we can afford things like everyone owning a car instead of mass transit,
The day that the government provides free cars to everyone is the day you can make such a ludicrous statement like what you just did. Yes, if the government was providing free cars to everyone, I'd say they'd be better off paying for healthcare. Since they aren't, it's a stupid and dishonest argument to say they ought to be paying for health instead of cars.
Why shouldn't it be legal? Otherwise, what is to stop someone who has chosen not to have insurance (spending his money on other things like cars and boats and fast women) from realizing he's just developed a medical problem and then buying the least amount of insurance he needs to get it taken care of?
You do realize that "insurance" isn't supposed to be some kind of discount medical service provider, don't you? It's supposed to be a gamble -- if you don't need it, that's great and your premiums helped pay for someone who did, but if you do, it covers you based on other people who didn't need it.
Allowing people to wait until they are sick to buy insurance is like ... something to do with a car. How about, like letting someone sitting at the blackjack table wait to see that he's got 21 and the dealer busts before he has to put up a bet on that hand. What casino could survive that kind of operation? What kind of insurance company could survive if every new client showed up with a known condition that was going to cost more to deal with than the one-year premium they could charge?
The answer: only a federally funded free health care "insurance" program, and that's only because EVERYONE will be REQUIRED to pay for everyone else's "insurance".
And yes, it is DISHONEST to claim that such a system won't cause private insurance companies to go out of business and cause people to lose the coverage they already have. It is a LIE to claim that people will be able to keep the same coverage they have, because they can't keep coverage with a company that doesn't exist anymore.
So unless employers start asking for employees' complete medical history, the submitter's fears would be baseless
Employers will have nothing to do with it. Once the feds start handing out "free" health care, they will have no reason to offer health insurance as a benefit of employment, so nobody will have employer-provided insurance. Everyone who has a private plan paid for by his employer will lose it, and every private insurance company that handles those plans will go bankrupt or into some other line of business.
Even if "Obama's plan" never passes, the employer still has nothing to do with it. As soon as Jimmy with the pre-existing condition walks into the doctor's office expecting treatment now that he's got health insurance, the insurance company will get the history.
Now what SHOULD be illegal is for an insurance company to drop a client who has a condition. That's stacking the deck the wrong way. That's saying the casino can kick someone who is winning out just for winning. Oh, wait, they CAN kick you out for winning. Oh well, analogies are analogies because they aren't identical, just similar.
Everyone else? No, many people, especially those in cars, follow the laws. Some don't. Some go the wrong way around traffic circles. Some do run stop signs. They're wrong.
Now count the number of bicyclists who break the law on a regular basis. The ones who come to a stop sign crossing a busy road and instead of stopping like the law requires, swerve over a couple of feet and ride through the crosswalk as if they were pedestrians. That puts not only themselves but the pedestrians in that crosswalk in danger.
The ones I really love are the ones who approach the main road from a side-street (with a stop sign for them) at full speed, while I'm going through that intersection, and instead of stopping or even slowing down, they make a sharp right turn into the bike lane. Someday one of them will hit a piece of gravel in the road, or some dirt, and lose control, sliding themselves under my car. They'll be dead or disabled, and it won't be my fault, but that won't make me feel any better about it, and it won't keep the rabid anti-car nuts from harassing me for the rest of my life.
No, it's not "road rage based on owning the road", it's anger that those who are supposed to share the road with me are breaking the laws and putting not only themselves but me in danger, and they do it on a regular basis with no reason to expect repercussions -- as if THEY owned the road and I better get out of THEIR way. So, you have it exactly backwards.
I'm pretty sure also you're part of the idiots who sit in traffic school and think they're perfect drivers,...
I stop at stop signs, I stop for peds. Not a perfect driver, but I'll compare my record with nearly every bicyclist I've ever seen on the road.
Well, they are SUPPOSED to be treated the same, but the reality is much, much different. Maybe you don't live in Oregon so you don't know what goes on here.
If as many cars simply ignored as many stop signs as bicyclists do, there would be cop cars monitoring every intersection just waiting to write tickets. The last time a cop gave a bicyclist a ticket for ignoring a stop sign here, the papers filled with rage that the cop was wasting his time enforcing a law that shouldn't exist.
I don't know about Portland's packs of cyclists, but they do the same thing in Eugene. They plan events intended to block the roads (the LAW says they are to ride single file on the right, you know) to annoy and harass drivers. Not long ago, they did this on a major bridge and they hindered an ambulance going to a medical emergency. Did anyone get ticketed? Yeah, right.
Locally, a distracted SUV driver ran over a bicyclist. Yes, bad thing. She got ticketed (properly) and the papers filled with rage about her arrogant disregard for human life. (Because she drives a car, she automatically has an arrogant disregard for human life, according to our bicyclist pals.) About a day later, a BICYCLIST ran down a PEDESTRIAN IN A CROSSWALK, putting the pedestrian in the hospital with major injuries. (In case you don't know Oregon law, ALL vehicles MUST STOP for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and crosswalks exist at intersections even if they aren't marked...) Did the bicyclist get a ticket for his arrogant disregard for human life? Of course not. Did his fellow bicyclists condemn him? They were too busy making excuses for him to ever say anything bad. (It was dark out. The ped wasn't wearing reflective clothing. It was rainy. The bike's headlight wasn't strong enough to see him... Everything they used as an excuse just proved the bicyclist was going too fast for conditions -- a ticketable offense for car drivers.)
No, I don't think you can honestly say that bicycle riders (more than a very small handful) believe they are supposed to follow the same laws every other vehicle is, or that they are even close to being treated by law enforcement as if they are supposed to.
It also charges more for cars that have poor gas milage. For example, an unmaintained vehicle of one model will pay more than one that is well maintained, even though they both do the same amount of damage to the road.
You can also cheat on odometers by disconnecting the speedometer cable, but that leaves one vulnerable to speeding tickets.
I have a GPS in my car that tells me my speed more accurately than any mechanical speedometer can. The difference is that _I_ and _I alone_ control the data recorded from that GPS (none!), and do not have to depend on the generosity and good will of the government to keep my driving information secret.
First, I think you will find that it is only a crime to tamper with it when it comes time to report the milage for a sale. IANAL, so don't quote me.
But more important, you missed the central idea of this plan. You get taxed EXTRA for driving where and when the government decides you shouldn't be driving. In Oregon, that's I5 and I205 and I405 in Portland rush hour. And other streets. Instead of building to meet capacity using the already-collected gas taxes, the gas taxes are going elsewhere and the streets are getting packed. How do you stop that? Keep people from driving! They can't force people to ride the useless MAX trains, so they need some other way of forcing them off the streets.
Also, driving on your own property is not taxable. How can it be? None of the gas tax will EVER be used to maintain your driveway or farmland, even in places where it IS sometimes used to maintain roads.
In the Oregon proposal, since it is a STATE tax, you also don't pay the tax when you drive outside Oregon. People near the edges sometimes spend a great deal of time outside Oregon (except for the west edge -- the roads in the Pacific are few and far between). Especially around the 4th of July, when everyone drives into Washington to buy fireworks. If this becomes a federal nightmare, then you'll need to know which state you were in because the state rates will almost certainly differ.
No, just reading the odometer isn't enough. It will require logging every mile and every minute and every location you drive, by computer, to be dumped into government computers every time you refuel.
This requires the constant recording of not only how many miles you drive but where AND when you drive them. It will be a MANDATORY requirement that the government know where your car was at all times.
It is this fact that the Oregon DOT could not bother to admit when they were doing this testing. I know one of the people who was involved in this testing, and she simply could not understand why this tracking was necessary.
She is an otherwise very bright person, but she could not understand that making the amount of money collected by the government depend on WHERE and WHEN you were driving would REQUIRE the government to know WHERE AND WHEN you were driving in order to calculate the correct tax.
Won't it be enough to just have the on-board computer calculate the amount? That would a require a complete and accurate and constantly updated database of EVERY ROAD in the United States and the tax status of every road. And if the on-board system did the calculation, there would be no way of logging or verification, or questioning the charge.
Further, the data has to be logged to catch potential cheats. You know, those people who simply put tinfoil over the GPS antenna...
ODOT claimed that the information about where and when people were driving wouldn't be available; guess how long after the next "Amber" before that data suddenly IS recoverable from YOUR car, and IS used in a trial to convict someone? Just think of the CHILDREN!
Gasoline taxes are bad enough as it is, considering that many of them aren't used to fund the road system anyway. Adding a milage tax is insult to injury. And if you think a tax will GO AWAY if a milage tax is implemented, then I've got some great ocean-front property in Wyoming to sell you.
As for the idea another poster floated that this will convince people to switch to electric or alternative energy vehicles, think again. A mile is a mile is a mile. You'll pay by the mile whether you are in a hybrid or electric or hydrogen vehicle. Sorta like having toll roads everywhere, even where the roads are never maintained!
Blumenaur is a nitwit. A result of Oregon's liberal ELF-huggers. The idea was stupid and won't be accepted by Oregon residents; it's still stupid when he pushes for a federal version.
Yes, a statement like "focus your rage upon the USPO" is meant to encourage reaction, and the reason you want to encourage rage is because they have procedures to deal with insane inventors. Your meaning is clear; it requires no great leaps of inferrence. Don't tell people to "focus their rage" on a system that you are "perfectly fine with".
They aren't stigmatizing inventors as being insane, they are making a sensible statement that someone who is legally unable to enter into contracts can still benefit from their inventions and the patent system by having the patent issued to a guardian. Just what value to the public is there in granting a patent to someone who cannot manage that patent and perhaps license production of the invention?
I think pretty well everyone would agree that it was antiquated if it said "if the inventor is a woman, the application for patent may be made by a guardian or husband...."
Everyone would pretty much agree that there would be no purpose in such a rule, since women aren't prevented from entering into contracts or otherwise benefiting from the granting of a patent. If the most beneficial thing a woman could do with a patent is wipe her ass with it, it would be quite proper for the patent office to allow her guardian to be granted the patent in her stead.
Those who are legally insane have limits on what they can do, and creating corporations to manufacture useful new products or signing contracts to license their patents are just two of them.
"Approximately zero" and "zero" are two very different things, given geological time scales.
There is significant evolutionary adaptation. Hence evolution does not require mutation.
Ahhh, a Lamarckian evolutionist raises his hand to speak. Welcome to /., sir.
I'm sorry. I apologize in advance, but this statement is just SCREAMING "make a smart-ass reply...".
Excuse? I haven't met your wife yet?
I'm the insane holder of a patent, you insensitive clod...
Seriously, being insane and being incapable of creative work are not the same thing.
You, sir, are a five-digit slashdot user. There ARE no people sleeping with you, much less people sleeping with you who are buying licenses to use a period. (That's because I have patented the period, which I license to people for less than what you charge for "the dot". And I license it to half the population for a very small amount. If you are one of the people who hasn't paid your period license, contact me ... those cramps are the "crippleware" version you downloaded for free.)
You mean, like, TODAY?
Well, ok, last year? My Moto W490 plugs into a mini-USB, looks like a USB stick, I drag mp3's onto it, and then I play them.
I can even have arbitrary mp3s as my ringtones. Even old time radio shows. When someone calls me, my phone doesn't "beep" or "braaaap", it goes "I was a communist for the FBI...".
In short, this article doesn't apply to the normal /. reader...
Yes, I was thinking the same. The very idea of evolution is based on mutation, and Evolution requires it as well.
That one fits only because they are all platypii, not because they are mallards.
That's right. DMZ is not part of NAT. Your "DMZ test" doesn't test NAT. It would test the security of having a DMZ. Thanks for admitting that.
In that scenario, please list the "security side benefits" your target machine would enjoy from taking advantage of NAT services but no Firewall services.
I've already listed them. YOU cannot touch the systems I have behind a NAT router because YOU cannot route packets to their non-routable addresses and my NAT router ignores any connections YOU try to make to the routable address it uses. YOU cannot port scan my systems, YOU cannot make a brute-force attempt to log in. YOU cannot connect to my ftp server and use the welcome string to detect a buggy server and crack into it, you cannot do the same with my Sendmail 4 server, or another service I'm using locally. YOU cannot take advantage of any older system I happen to reattach to the net, nor can you crack a fresh, unpatched installation of XP I am working on. YOU simply can't get to the system to touch it, while it can still reach out and get updates.
In fact, I don't need to care if NFS has more holes than swiss cheese, YOU can't talk to my NFS mount demon to take advantage of that. I don't need to care if I have no root password on half of my systems, YOU can't get a login prompt or port connection to take advantage of it. I don't need to care if remote X lets you keystroke monitor my sessions, because YOU cannot connect to any of my X servers to use it.
YOU cannot do ANYTHING to my systems -- unless I make a connection TO YOU, and if I do that then the firewall would not protect me, either. No, perhaps NAT wasn't designed as a security system, but it has enough properties of one that it is stupid to claim that it doesn't provide any security.
Even IF a DMZ was part of NAT, NAT has prevented YOU from touching ANY OTHER of my systems, even ones that have password-less root accounts and open SSH ports. YOU couldn't talk to anything but the one computer I guard carefully, and you can be sure it won't allow you to do anything, either.
Now, if you are arguing that NAT doesn't provide security because you can deliberately and stupidly misconfigure it to provide no security, then Duh! Of course, you need to realize that you can do the same to firewalls, so firewalls, in your opinion, must not provide security, either.
Please refer to Fig. 1a: "Whoooosche" ;3
Whooooosche yourself, bitch. If you can't be civil, go bother someone else. If you expect to be gratuitously insulting and then excuse it by claiming a "whoosh", then you really do need to go bother someone who cares.
Tell that to my boss, who just bought a new Mac to replace his old one. Can't just connect the two and let the magic update happen, he's got to update every damn thing by hand. His old one is a PPC, new one whatever the hell it is they are selling these days.
And the "magic update" process complains not that the old system is PPC, but that it doesn't run OS X, which is a lie.
Gotta love them macs.