cost-benefit analysis??? Let's see, I run a Windows network with Exchange. I went to source forge, got E-MailRelay and SpamAssassin. Total cost was my time and it catches 99.994% of spam. Based on that, the cost/benefit ratio is exceptional.
I think you missed the whole part about letting the users decide where they receive e-mail from. The majority of users in the US receive e-mail from only one or two other countries. For instance, my mother only uses e-mail to keep in touch with my uncle, my aunt, my brother and me. She hasn't ever, nor probably ever will care about an e-mail coming from China.
After reading this article and the one a few days ago about AOL and spam, I came up with this idea
I despise spam as much as most of you. My company is actually about to start a spam campaign against my recommendations. The day they start I will quit. Slashdot, here is my idea on blocking spam. What am I missing?
We all know what IP addresses belong to which countries. At work, we only deal with customers that carry professional certifications within the US. Of our client base, less than 1% of 1% of these customers and potential customers live outside the US or Canada. Therefore, I have blocked most networks outside of the US and Canada. The only exception is.mil. This has reduced my spam problem considerably. Add to this a Bayesian filter and my spam problem is essentially eliminated. This got me thinking...
ISPs should filter e-mail according to the user's requests. When you sign up for an account, by default, you can only receive e-mail originating/relaying from the US. Now, the user can go to their email configuration and pick which countries they wish to receive e-mail from. Most users only receive email from within the US and one or two other countries. If they only receive email from a few people outside the US, then just whitelist those address. If they want, Mexico, for instance opened, then let the user check the box next to allow e-mail from Mexico. Once this is setup, let the user decide if the e-mail failing to meet these conditions should be blocked or just moved to a separate folder for review. Another possibility is that if an e-mail originates from a blocked country and the spam filter thinks it's legitimate or just doesn't get a high spam score, send an NDR that says "Your e-mail looks like spam, but this could be a false positive. In order to deliver your email, please visit this site....." On that site, put one of the many methods to verify a human is actually visiting that site and then deal with the email accordingly.
For most users, the only noticeable impact would be less spam. This would also force spammers to send and/or relay from within the US. Now if they are operating from within the US, we have an IP address within the US's jurisdiction. Granted these may be zombie machines, so if your e-mail server does a reverse lookup before allowing e-mail, these would be denied. Also, we need to get ISPs to block most ports by default. If you want a port opened, you simply request it from your ISP. Add a clause like "by opening these ports, you are taking responsibility for any traffic on these ports. If we find your computer is sending viruses or spam or DOSing, then your service will be terminated." Again, most users would never notice a difference. Those that do notice can have the ports opened.
So now, for the average user, they would only receive e-mail originating or relaying from the US from a registered e-mail server. Now we can track this back to an ISP and shut down the account, seek legal action against the ISP for supporting spam, or black list that ISP. Since the spammer would have to have an MX record, you can get the registration info. This is probably bogus, so if we force registrars to verify the identity of the person, then we could actually track this back to a person. The spammer could probably falsify this too, but every step you add slows them down.
The spammer is going to now have to purchase an account with an ISP in the US and a registrar. Both of these entities should require a method of traceable payment. This means no cash. Now, we should have a means of finding who wrote the check or who the credit card belongs to. We now either have the spammer, the spammer's company (which should lead back to the spammer), or the spammer has now committed fraud. If he commits fraud, we now have the FBI after him and potential of longer jail sentences.
Not that I have to solicit criticism here on slashdot, but I'll ask anyways. What am I missing and why wouldn't this work?
Make a standard, fairly simple test that you must pass before you are allowed onto the internet. This test only needs about 3 questions. First, can you turn on the computer by yourself. Secondly, can you setup and or access e-mail by yourself. Thirdly, when you set up your e-mail, you should immediately e-mail the licensing agency. They should respond with an e-mail that completely looks like a virus. If you open the program attached, you fail. This program should promptly erase your hard drive so you will pose less of a threat.
What about as a listening post? We could build one hell of an array of dishes up there. It can see almost half the earth, and it loiters for a very very long time. Granted, it also takes about 14 days to see the entire earth.
Vibrator probably would not be destructive. Think about the vibrations of launch, rentry, and landing on Mars. Do you think a little vibration motor would do any amount of serious damage???
Since this is a government agency, they have to seek out bidders and give everyone an equal opprotunity to produce this custom watch. The bidder who can make the most complicated watch with the most parts made in the most congressional districts and states and initially within budget gets the contract. Nasa spends more money, but evenly distributes amongst congressional districts. This makes congress happy and Nasa gets more moeny to spend on overpriced, useless shit.
I find it kind of ironic that there are soooo many people that want to bitch about any technological breakthrough or scientific achievment that has military application, yet the internet itself largely started due to the US military's network. The reason most of us on slashdot have multiple personal computers is the military pumped uncountable dollars into computer research and advancement because it helped them fight wars better. We would not have been able to put a man into space if it were not because of the military, and NASA probably wouldn't be able to put anything into space even today if not for the military due to the cost of lauch facilities (the USAF maintains and operates all launch facilities).
The fact is that a very large number of the things we enjoy everyday is a direct result of the military. Yes, wars are bad. Yes, it'd be nice if we took all the money devoted to fighting wars and devoted it soley to pure scientific research and embetterment of society. But the (percieved) need to defend our way of life is a more immediate and stronger driving force in the government. Because of this, billions of dollars are dumped into research and, since we have not destroyed ourself yet, we have reaped many benefits from the military's research.
How about we estimate how many poor electrons have been tortured by being forced to transmit SPAM. Then, when we catch the spammer, we should allow an equal number of electrons to exact their revenge on the spammer......OH, WAIT!!! We already have one of those devices, it's called an electric chair:)
First, this is probably illegal. And breaking the law to stop worse criminals does not make your breaking of the law just.
Second, the spammers would still send spam, but they would include links to all their favorite anti-spam sites and their other enemies thus launching a DDOS attack against their enemies.
Third, you'd have to get a large number of people to use this program to make it effective enough to cost these companies enough money to make them stop using spam
Forth, You have to rely on the marketing genii to relize that 50 billion hits on their website and 3 website sales means that spam isn't working....this is a huge stretch if you ask me.
and not the spammers. I remember a while back there was a posting about the telemarketers that gave their phone number. After a few phone calls, they decided they didn't like their own medicine very much and even changed their phone number. Like most things we American's take on, we work our asses off for a very short period of time and then get tired of trying and most of us give up. I propose that we contact the companies whose products are advertised in spam, and inform them of how we do not approve of their marketing method.
Yes, spam is cheap and that is why it is so profitable for not only the spammer but the company that paid a direct marketing firm to advertise their product. Most companies have toll free numbers. If 1/1000th of the people who recieve spam for a product from a company in the US called this company, their marketing model would fall apart.
This would at least reduce spam for somewhat legitimate products. However, at best, we would only pull this off one time, and in a few months, all these companies would be right back at it.
If you use a rocket to get something into orbit, you have the mass of the space vehicle, mass of the rockets and the constantly changing mass of the fuel. At launch, the mass of the fuel is a huge amount. With an elevator, you only have the mass of the vehicle and whatever device is used to move it up the cable. The energy to move it up the cable is delivered to it. Therefore it does not have to carry it's own fuel.
Companies are going to adopt this technology because they can create an "uncopyable" product (probably tickets, coupons, and other vouchers), and they already have the technology in their office.
In the mean time, some counterfeiter who has the same technology in their office or home will simply copy the main image and recreate the superimposed image in a graphics program. Then he will be able to print "authentic" tickets or whatever whenever he wants.
The number one blockade in stopping conterfeiters is the machine that produces the items they want to counterfeit, not the complexity of the artwork or image. Sure, the complex image and holograph help, but that is mainly because consumer level and most business level products can't produce images that complex. Give me a few months and I could make a damn good couterfeit $20 bill if I only had the paper and the press that makes them. It wouldn't be perfect, but the average cashier wouldn't notice.
The spammers are violating the terms of service of their ISP, so (IANAL) wouldn't that mean that the ISP does not have to hold up it's end of the terms of service? Assuming they don't have to, then the ISP should sue the spammer, but they should also post the spammer's full name and contact info, plus provide a copy of the spam emails the spammer sent. Then each individual person could sue the spammer individually. To hell with the class action. We could make the ass hole appear in court everyday for the next 10 years. I sure as hell wouldn't mind sacraficing one day to take this guy to court and pay the legal fees. I'd represent myself and wouldn't care if I lost if there were many others doing the same thing.
There are two things I'd really like to take a look at, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
First, there is a program that can convert the work unit files into a wav file. I think it would be pretty cool to listen to some of these top 100 signals. I've played with the program on quite a few work units and never been able to hear anything but static. As strong as the top 100 signals are, you should actually be able to hear something.
Second, there are a few places on seti's and related sites that show a picture of what a good signal looks like. Why don't they take a grad student and make him run through the top 100 signals and record what the graphics look like when it is processed?
I've actually emailed them before and requested both of these. I've never gotten a response nor have they posted either. If they have, then I've just missed it.
by forwarding each individual spam you get to both of your senators and your representative and any other political figure you can think of. Just put on a new subject line and include a short message asking them to pass laws against people like the aforementioned ass hole.
This could have one of two results. They listen to our bitches, moans, groans, and complaints, and they start passing some better laws. Or they fire one of you guys because they don't understand why a few million emails a day is more than the server can handle.
...Just becaues you don't vote doesn't mean you can't complain
Not voting is just like the people at work who bitch about everything that is wrong but don't do anything to help fix the problem. If you are at a party and cake is being handed out, and I ask you if you want white or chocolate icing. You just sit there and don't answer me, so I give you white icing. Now you decide that you really wanted chocolate. You have the right to free speach and I can't stop you from complaining about it, but don't think for one second that I or anyone else that knows you didn't make a choice is going to listen or care about your complaint.
If you don't vote then bitch about the elected officials, then I guess you just like hearing yourself talk because your arguements, no matter how valid, carry no weight because you were not responsible enough to voice your opinion.
No offense to you personally, but there are far too many people out there that think their vote is so insignificant that they don't bother to vote. I used to work for an election office (in Florida too), and on a GOOD election, we would get 30% voter turn out. That is pathetic. Everyone reading this far, please take the 15 minutes on election day and go vote.
All scientific endevours, especially the ones that go against conventional thought are considered to be a terrible waste of money and many people want them canceled. However, when these projects are sucessful, they rewrite conventional thought and their deiscoveries can change they way everyone lives their lives.
Columbus was considered insane to want to sail around the world to reach India. He was ridiculed and almost didn't find funding. His discovery completely changed the world. There was a time when the suggestion that the earth was round and not the center of the universe would get you killed. I'm not going to list any more examples of going against conventional thought but I'm sure all of you can think of plenty of them.
I'm sure that all of you reading this know, with out a doubt, that there is life on other planets. It is not hard to imagine that there is intelligent life out there too. While this project is trying to find a needle in a haystack, the cost of searching for it next to nothing vs the potential return, and actually finding it would be the greatest discovery ever made.
I believe there are many other projects that we should contribute to such as cancer or aids research, but do you honestly think that canceling SETI will make the vast majority of SETI users switch to another program?
There has been some talk about the stats involved on life being created on Earth and then being created on Venus. What if there was a planet that had large oceans and it was teaming with life. Then an asteroid hit the planet and sent fragments of it in all directions. One of those pieces of ice and dirt (which now has frozen microbes in it) happened to find our solar system. As it approached the sun, it started evaporating and pieces started falling off. All it would take is one microbe to seed life.
After all the extremophiles discovered all over the Earth, it is not too hard to imagine a layer in the atmosphere of Venus where life could thrive.
We know there are microbes that can survive being frozen, and there are some that can survive extreme temperatures and large amounts of radiation too. We've even found a several billion year old microbe captured in a salt crystal in Carlsbad Caverns, and when it was rehydrated, it was alive.
If an even like the one I described could happen, then there are billions and billions of microbes floating around space just waiting to land on some planet that can support life.
and all the other woodland creatures. Also, can't forget about the insects that naturally feed on these plants.
It's easy to keep humans from eating these plants; however, there are always the ones that don't read the warning signs and jump the barbed wire fence we'll read about in the Darwin awards.
But what will happen to the animals, insects, fungi, bacteria, etc that will feed on these plants?
And what happens when the leaves fall off the trees? When they decay won't they contaminate the soil
Well, the free electrons in the ionosphere are a conductive layer that shields us from radiation. So, if you deplete it too much, you'll not only get free electricity, but you could probably get your xray taken just by going outside.
Slashdot Mirror
cost-benefit analysis??? Let's see, I run a Windows network with Exchange. I went to source forge, got E-MailRelay and SpamAssassin. Total cost was my time and it catches 99.994% of spam. Based on that, the cost/benefit ratio is exceptional.
I think you missed the whole part about letting the users decide where they receive e-mail from. The majority of users in the US receive e-mail from only one or two other countries. For instance, my mother only uses e-mail to keep in touch with my uncle, my aunt, my brother and me. She hasn't ever, nor probably ever will care about an e-mail coming from China.
That is why all e-mail servers should check to see if the sending IP address has an MX record.
After reading this article and the one a few days ago about AOL and spam, I came up with this idea
I despise spam as much as most of you. My company is actually about to start a spam campaign against my recommendations. The day they start I will quit. Slashdot, here is my idea on blocking spam. What am I missing?
We all know what IP addresses belong to which countries. At work, we only deal with customers that carry professional certifications within the US. Of our client base, less than 1% of 1% of these customers and potential customers live outside the US or Canada. Therefore, I have blocked most networks outside of the US and Canada. The only exception is .mil. This has reduced my spam problem considerably. Add to this a Bayesian filter and my spam problem is essentially eliminated. This got me thinking...
ISPs should filter e-mail according to the user's requests. When you sign up for an account, by default, you can only receive e-mail originating/relaying from the US. Now, the user can go to their email configuration and pick which countries they wish to receive e-mail from. Most users only receive email from within the US and one or two other countries. If they only receive email from a few people outside the US, then just whitelist those address. If they want, Mexico, for instance opened, then let the user check the box next to allow e-mail from Mexico. Once this is setup, let the user decide if the e-mail failing to meet these conditions should be blocked or just moved to a separate folder for review. Another possibility is that if an e-mail originates from a blocked country and the spam filter thinks it's legitimate or just doesn't get a high spam score, send an NDR that says "Your e-mail looks like spam, but this could be a false positive. In order to deliver your email, please visit this site....." On that site, put one of the many methods to verify a human is actually visiting that site and then deal with the email accordingly.
For most users, the only noticeable impact would be less spam. This would also force spammers to send and/or relay from within the US. Now if they are operating from within the US, we have an IP address within the US's jurisdiction. Granted these may be zombie machines, so if your e-mail server does a reverse lookup before allowing e-mail, these would be denied. Also, we need to get ISPs to block most ports by default. If you want a port opened, you simply request it from your ISP. Add a clause like "by opening these ports, you are taking responsibility for any traffic on these ports. If we find your computer is sending viruses or spam or DOSing, then your service will be terminated." Again, most users would never notice a difference. Those that do notice can have the ports opened.
So now, for the average user, they would only receive e-mail originating or relaying from the US from a registered e-mail server. Now we can track this back to an ISP and shut down the account, seek legal action against the ISP for supporting spam, or black list that ISP. Since the spammer would have to have an MX record, you can get the registration info. This is probably bogus, so if we force registrars to verify the identity of the person, then we could actually track this back to a person. The spammer could probably falsify this too, but every step you add slows them down.
The spammer is going to now have to purchase an account with an ISP in the US and a registrar. Both of these entities should require a method of traceable payment. This means no cash. Now, we should have a means of finding who wrote the check or who the credit card belongs to. We now either have the spammer, the spammer's company (which should lead back to the spammer), or the spammer has now committed fraud. If he commits fraud, we now have the FBI after him and potential of longer jail sentences.
Not that I have to solicit criticism here on slashdot, but I'll ask anyways. What am I missing and why wouldn't this work?
Make a standard, fairly simple test that you must pass before you are allowed onto the internet. This test only needs about 3 questions. First, can you turn on the computer by yourself. Secondly, can you setup and or access e-mail by yourself. Thirdly, when you set up your e-mail, you should immediately e-mail the licensing agency. They should respond with an e-mail that completely looks like a virus. If you open the program attached, you fail. This program should promptly erase your hard drive so you will pose less of a threat.
What about as a listening post? We could build one hell of an array of dishes up there. It can see almost half the earth, and it loiters for a very very long time. Granted, it also takes about 14 days to see the entire earth.
Vibrator probably would not be destructive. Think about the vibrations of launch, rentry, and landing on Mars. Do you think a little vibration motor would do any amount of serious damage???
Since this is a government agency, they have to seek out bidders and give everyone an equal opprotunity to produce this custom watch. The bidder who can make the most complicated watch with the most parts made in the most congressional districts and states and initially within budget gets the contract. Nasa spends more money, but evenly distributes amongst congressional districts. This makes congress happy and Nasa gets more moeny to spend on overpriced, useless shit.
I find it kind of ironic that there are soooo many people that want to bitch about any technological breakthrough or scientific achievment that has military application, yet the internet itself largely started due to the US military's network. The reason most of us on slashdot have multiple personal computers is the military pumped uncountable dollars into computer research and advancement because it helped them fight wars better. We would not have been able to put a man into space if it were not because of the military, and NASA probably wouldn't be able to put anything into space even today if not for the military due to the cost of lauch facilities (the USAF maintains and operates all launch facilities).
The fact is that a very large number of the things we enjoy everyday is a direct result of the military. Yes, wars are bad. Yes, it'd be nice if we took all the money devoted to fighting wars and devoted it soley to pure scientific research and embetterment of society. But the (percieved) need to defend our way of life is a more immediate and stronger driving force in the government. Because of this, billions of dollars are dumped into research and, since we have not destroyed ourself yet, we have reaped many benefits from the military's research.
How about we estimate how many poor electrons have been tortured by being forced to transmit SPAM. Then, when we catch the spammer, we should allow an equal number of electrons to exact their revenge on the spammer......OH, WAIT!!! We already have one of those devices, it's called an electric chair :)
First, this is probably illegal. And breaking the law to stop worse criminals does not make your breaking of the law just.
Second, the spammers would still send spam, but they would include links to all their favorite anti-spam sites and their other enemies thus launching a DDOS attack against their enemies.
Third, you'd have to get a large number of people to use this program to make it effective enough to cost these companies enough money to make them stop using spam
Forth, You have to rely on the marketing genii to relize that 50 billion hits on their website and 3 website sales means that spam isn't working....this is a huge stretch if you ask me.
and not the spammers. I remember a while back there was a posting about the telemarketers that gave their phone number. After a few phone calls, they decided they didn't like their own medicine very much and even changed their phone number. Like most things we American's take on, we work our asses off for a very short period of time and then get tired of trying and most of us give up. I propose that we contact the companies whose products are advertised in spam, and inform them of how we do not approve of their marketing method.
Yes, spam is cheap and that is why it is so profitable for not only the spammer but the company that paid a direct marketing firm to advertise their product. Most companies have toll free numbers. If 1/1000th of the people who recieve spam for a product from a company in the US called this company, their marketing model would fall apart.
This would at least reduce spam for somewhat legitimate products. However, at best, we would only pull this off one time, and in a few months, all these companies would be right back at it.
If you use a rocket to get something into orbit, you have the mass of the space vehicle, mass of the rockets and the constantly changing mass of the fuel. At launch, the mass of the fuel is a huge amount. With an elevator, you only have the mass of the vehicle and whatever device is used to move it up the cable. The energy to move it up the cable is delivered to it. Therefore it does not have to carry it's own fuel.
at least they do what they are designed to do!
Companies are going to adopt this technology because they can create an "uncopyable" product (probably tickets, coupons, and other vouchers), and they already have the technology in their office.
In the mean time, some counterfeiter who has the same technology in their office or home will simply copy the main image and recreate the superimposed image in a graphics program. Then he will be able to print "authentic" tickets or whatever whenever he wants.
The number one blockade in stopping conterfeiters is the machine that produces the items they want to counterfeit, not the complexity of the artwork or image. Sure, the complex image and holograph help, but that is mainly because consumer level and most business level products can't produce images that complex. Give me a few months and I could make a damn good couterfeit $20 bill if I only had the paper and the press that makes them. It wouldn't be perfect, but the average cashier wouldn't notice.
How much of our employer's money is wasted by employees reading & posting about spam?
The spammers are violating the terms of service of their ISP, so (IANAL) wouldn't that mean that the ISP does not have to hold up it's end of the terms of service? Assuming they don't have to, then the ISP should sue the spammer, but they should also post the spammer's full name and contact info, plus provide a copy of the spam emails the spammer sent. Then each individual person could sue the spammer individually. To hell with the class action. We could make the ass hole appear in court everyday for the next 10 years. I sure as hell wouldn't mind sacraficing one day to take this guy to court and pay the legal fees. I'd represent myself and wouldn't care if I lost if there were many others doing the same thing.
There are two things I'd really like to take a look at, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
First, there is a program that can convert the work unit files into a wav file. I think it would be pretty cool to listen to some of these top 100 signals. I've played with the program on quite a few work units and never been able to hear anything but static. As strong as the top 100 signals are, you should actually be able to hear something.
Second, there are a few places on seti's and related sites that show a picture of what a good signal looks like. Why don't they take a grad student and make him run through the top 100 signals and record what the graphics look like when it is processed?
I've actually emailed them before and requested both of these. I've never gotten a response nor have they posted either. If they have, then I've just missed it.
by forwarding each individual spam you get to both of your senators and your representative and any other political figure you can think of. Just put on a new subject line and include a short message asking them to pass laws against people like the aforementioned ass hole.
This could have one of two results. They listen to our bitches, moans, groans, and complaints, and they start passing some better laws. Or they fire one of you guys because they don't understand why a few million emails a day is more than the server can handle.
...Just becaues you don't vote doesn't mean you can't complain Not voting is just like the people at work who bitch about everything that is wrong but don't do anything to help fix the problem. If you are at a party and cake is being handed out, and I ask you if you want white or chocolate icing. You just sit there and don't answer me, so I give you white icing. Now you decide that you really wanted chocolate. You have the right to free speach and I can't stop you from complaining about it, but don't think for one second that I or anyone else that knows you didn't make a choice is going to listen or care about your complaint.
If you don't vote then bitch about the elected officials, then I guess you just like hearing yourself talk because your arguements, no matter how valid, carry no weight because you were not responsible enough to voice your opinion.
No offense to you personally, but there are far too many people out there that think their vote is so insignificant that they don't bother to vote. I used to work for an election office (in Florida too), and on a GOOD election, we would get 30% voter turn out. That is pathetic. Everyone reading this far, please take the 15 minutes on election day and go vote.
All scientific endevours, especially the ones that go against conventional thought are considered to be a terrible waste of money and many people want them canceled. However, when these projects are sucessful, they rewrite conventional thought and their deiscoveries can change they way everyone lives their lives.
Columbus was considered insane to want to sail around the world to reach India. He was ridiculed and almost didn't find funding. His discovery completely changed the world. There was a time when the suggestion that the earth was round and not the center of the universe would get you killed. I'm not going to list any more examples of going against conventional thought but I'm sure all of you can think of plenty of them.
I'm sure that all of you reading this know, with out a doubt, that there is life on other planets. It is not hard to imagine that there is intelligent life out there too. While this project is trying to find a needle in a haystack, the cost of searching for it next to nothing vs the potential return, and actually finding it would be the greatest discovery ever made.
I believe there are many other projects that we should contribute to such as cancer or aids research, but do you honestly think that canceling SETI will make the vast majority of SETI users switch to another program?
There has been some talk about the stats involved on life being created on Earth and then being created on Venus. What if there was a planet that had large oceans and it was teaming with life. Then an asteroid hit the planet and sent fragments of it in all directions. One of those pieces of ice and dirt (which now has frozen microbes in it) happened to find our solar system. As it approached the sun, it started evaporating and pieces started falling off. All it would take is one microbe to seed life.
After all the extremophiles discovered all over the Earth, it is not too hard to imagine a layer in the atmosphere of Venus where life could thrive.
We know there are microbes that can survive being frozen, and there are some that can survive extreme temperatures and large amounts of radiation too. We've even found a several billion year old microbe captured in a salt crystal in Carlsbad Caverns, and when it was rehydrated, it was alive.
If an even like the one I described could happen, then there are billions and billions of microbes floating around space just waiting to land on some planet that can support life.
and all the other woodland creatures. Also, can't forget about the insects that naturally feed on these plants.
It's easy to keep humans from eating these plants; however, there are always the ones that don't read the warning signs and jump the barbed wire fence we'll read about in the Darwin awards.
But what will happen to the animals, insects, fungi, bacteria, etc that will feed on these plants?
And what happens when the leaves fall off the trees? When they decay won't they contaminate the soil
Well, the free electrons in the ionosphere are a conductive layer that shields us from radiation. So, if you deplete it too much, you'll not only get free electricity, but you could probably get your xray taken just by going outside.
There have been several mentions of using a red or infrared laser to blind cameras. Has anyone tried the green laser pointers now available?