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User: Ph33r+th3+g(O)at

Ph33r+th3+g(O)at's activity in the archive.

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Comments · 900

  1. Re:Not the coders' faults. on Advertisers May Face Ridicule For Adware · · Score: 1

    Ah, the "Orders are orders" defense. Didn't work at Nuremburg, and shouldn't work for programmers who knew damn well what they were working in support of.

  2. Re:This is not new! on Limited Email Surveillance Approved · · Score: 1

    I've found that you can refuse, at least in the case of telephone and utility companies. Haven't tried with a cable operator. Often they will require a deposit in that case. Last time, I got 8% on my money, pretty damn good in these times.

  3. Re:This is not new! on Limited Email Surveillance Approved · · Score: 1

    Scary enough. Might be worthwhile to request any information held on you from DIS, as well as any service-specific investigative service (e.g. Army CID, NCIS) under the Privacy Act. What you get will be redacted, but might yield some insight on how you came to be under scrutiny.

  4. Re:This goes hand-in-hand with the 'Annoyance Law' on Limited Email Surveillance Approved · · Score: 1

    Ah--guess I should have RTFL :). Thanks.

  5. Re:This goes hand-in-hand with the 'Annoyance Law' on Limited Email Surveillance Approved · · Score: 1

    Seems sort of unforceable. If you send an anonymous email, no one knows whom to prosecute. If they know it's you, then the email is ipso facto not anoymous.

  6. Re:This is not new! on Limited Email Surveillance Approved · · Score: 1

    Sounds like you were in the military at the time. Did this message originate from your .mil or other government account? And look at the enemies of the Constitution in power now. They've eclipsed Reno, though she is evil enough.

  7. Re:Oh no! They're treating e-mail like regular mai on Limited Email Surveillance Approved · · Score: 1

    True, a mail cover doesn't require a warrant. But those involve mail already being handled by a former government, and now quasi-government agency. This development forces the cooperation of private companies in an electronic mail cover.

  8. Re:Just need a desktop search that . . . on EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop · · Score: 1

    That is one possibility, I don't know if GDS will work if blocked from connecting or not. But I'd much prefer to simply be able to uncheck a box and have an app that is accessing and indexing sensitive data just not connect to the Internet at all without having to use a workaround.

  9. Re:Just need a desktop search that . . . on EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop · · Score: 1

    Thank you--I'll give this a try!

  10. Re:Just need a desktop search that . . . on EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop · · Score: 1

    IIRC, you can't turn off the call home for upgrades on GDS. I would pay money for a desktop search that can be configured to not connect to the network in any way whatsoever. But even the ones that charge (e.g. X1) cannot be so configured. And I don't want to have to use configure a desktop firewall to neuter it.

  11. Re:Just need a desktop search that . . . on EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop · · Score: 1

    LOL, nice one.

  12. Just need a desktop search that . . . on EFF Warns Not to Use Google Desktop · · Score: 1

    . . . doesn't call home. Period. Not for updates, not for search aggregation, not for ad display. Does it exist? I know X1 calls home. I know Copernic calls home. I know GDS calls home. Maybe Lotus Magellan doesn't :).

  13. Re:This kinda reminds me of asprin, and escalator on Red Cross Condemns Misuse of Emblem In Games · · Score: 1

    I was under the impression that Bayer AG lost the Aspirin trademark as part of Germany's WW I reparations, and that it became a generic term after that.

  14. Re:Accurate racism on U.S.Laws May Make Online Job Hunting Harder · · Score: 1

    I see. So if you define the means you used to infer the race of the person from the application materias as "racism," then the "racism" must be accurate. Thus you're saying that it is possible to be racist in so determining, and if one is, then one is racist. It makes my head hurt, but I almost think I understand what you're saying. Racism, being the loaded term that it is, is probably not the best word to describe inference of race by name or other applicant data characteristics.

  15. Re:Accurate racism on U.S.Laws May Make Online Job Hunting Harder · · Score: 1

    So it's racial prejudice to infer a race from a surname? Interesting, since the U.S. Federal government suggests employers do exactly that for reporting statistics when applicants don't disclose race on questionnaires given for EEO compliance purposes. I think you're confusing simple deduction with racism--if you really don't believe you can predict that someone named Xiang Li is Asian with a high probability unless you're racist, then you must think there's quite an epidemic of racism.

  16. Re:Differential Pricing on Verizon Threatens Google's 'Free Lunch' · · Score: 1

    This will happen with some things, but along with the vendors' ability to perfectly price discriminate comes customers' ability to compare notes online about what they're charged. Both sides will end up using intelligent agents to game each other, resulting in about the same situation we have today, but with a lot more work on the part of both sides of the economic arms race.

  17. Re:Accurate racism on U.S.Laws May Make Online Job Hunting Harder · · Score: 1

    Even if it's only from the individual's name?

  18. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1

    This is a civil matter, not a criminal one, so you'll be safe in my country. I won't even make you surrender your passport.

  19. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1

    It absolutely is--they're not acting the way a company complying would act.

  20. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1

    Yes, there are no tigers here :). But then, I would expect those living near a tiger habitat to take some precautions against tigers, just as I would expect a Google complying with a privacy law to talk about doing so and name a compliance officer on their site.

  21. Re:A diagnostic boon . . . on Retina Blood Vessels Predict Common Fatal Diseases · · Score: 1

    Better than the Minority Report alternative, which sounds painful. Gattaca, great movie, and prophetic to a disturbing degree.

  22. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1
    We both know that you can't prove a negative. But the lack of mention of the UK or EU law on Google's site points to a lack of compliance.

    The ethical argument is expediency vs. right--at the very least, Google could be given credit for attempting an expedient solution. I frankly don't think Google gives a good g-d damn about the Chinese people, and see their actions as so indicating. But certainly the Googlepologists are entitled to think "engagement is the best way."

  23. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1

    Good show--I actually thought of Scientology after having written the post. However, in the U.S., as I said, the censorship is done with a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge, here's the complaint" that effectively serves as a pointer for the information Scientology or other DMCA complainers are trying to suppress.

  24. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1

    I actually do try to, but that's pretty much impossible with how deep in bed corporate America is with the ChiComs. But I submit that buying a pair of tennis shoes isn't quite equivalent to conspiring with a foreign government to censor inside their borders.

  25. Re:Speak for yourself on Search Engine Privacy Explained · · Score: 1

    While I don't agree with the DMCA, there's a big difference between Google, as a U.S. company, complying with U.S. copyright law and conspiring with a foreign government to suppress political and religious speech. And in the case of DMCA suppression, Google provides along with the notification, a link to chillingeffects which, with a wink and a nod, says exactly what was censored provides enough information to find the suppressed content in the first place. The vague notification at the bottom of google.cn might just as well appear at the bottom of every search there, as it provides no information as to what had been censored.