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User: Trepidity

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  1. Cyber Options on Pentagon Discloses Network Breach By Russian Hackers · · Score: 2

    Sounds like an R-rated 1990s film.

  2. Re:Please, BC/AD on Ancient Hangover Cure Discovered In Greek Texts · · Score: 2

    What I don't like about BC/AD is that one is English and one is Latin. Pick one, not some ugly mixture! The mixture also means that the placement of the abbreviation is either inconsistent (traditional usage) or grammatically incorrect (getting more common). The grammatically correct placement is to put BC after the date, but AD before the date:

    330 BC vs. AD 1983

    You could write "1983 AD", but then you are not even being correctly traditional, at which point you might as well just give up and use the newer English abbreviations, which always go at the end.

  3. Re:And when capped internet comes then people will on German Court Rules Adblock Plus Is Legal · · Score: 1

    That's a new ultra-low-usage cheaper tier that you can opt into. The tier that people are getting their plans converted to by default is 300 GB/mo.

  4. Re:Administrators control on Microsoft Announces Device Guard For Windows 10 · · Score: 2

    Not always in corporate settings, which is probably what this is aimed at. It's admittedly super-annoying to have to use a machine where you don't have administrator access, but it happens.

  5. Re:And when capped internet comes then people will on German Court Rules Adblock Plus Is Legal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Caps are getting more common in the US. One of the biggest national ISPs, Comcast, has been rolling them out city by city. So far still not in most of the country, but they've been rolled out as a "trial" in Atlanta, Memphis, Tucson, etc., and will probably be extended nationally. Here's their FAQ about it.

  6. not too surprising on Dutch Prosecutors Launch Criminal Investigation Against Uber For Flouting Ban · · Score: 1

    In most legal systems, you can't just directly ignore a court order without it becoming a criminal case. Even if it wasn't criminal before, violating a court order is itself an offense.

  7. Re: And It's Illegal to Videotape Police on The Courage of Bystanders Who Press "Record" · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The police do often act as if it is, though. Not under a specific "illegal to record the police" statute, but making bullshit use of other laws, e.g. "interfering with a crime scene". At the very least they can often stop the filming and arrest someone, even if the charges don't stick.

  8. Re:The Little Logo That Could on Heartbleed One Year Later: Has Anything Changed? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Heartbleed logo is the first logo designed in almost 50 years that has no need for a drop shadow.

    Are drop shadows really that popular in logos? The trend as I see it seems to be towards "flat" designs, both in logos and other areas like UIs (e.g. recent versions of iOS and OSX have dropped the pseudo-3d elements and specular highlights). When I think of a typical modern corporate logo I think of something like the new (2001) BP logo, which is entirely flat.

  9. wardriving v2 might be more interesting on Research Finds Shoddy Security On Connected Home Gateways · · Score: 1

    Instead of just fucking around on someone's wifi, the 21st-century's wardriving kids will be heating your house to 90 F, freezing your vegetables, and ruining your coffee!

  10. Re:Anything unique? on Mono 4 Released, First Version To Adopt Microsoft Code · · Score: 1

    If you mean compared to the official C# release, for the moment it's still Windows-only, so Mono's main advantage is being a cross-platform C# compiler/runtime.

  11. Re:Constipated Justice System on 'Revenge Porn' Operator Gets 18 Years In Prison · · Score: 1

    Yes, recidivism is a different situation: if you've been in prison 6 months, are released, and commit the exact same crime, than you will probably get more than 6 months. But you won't get 18 years on a first trial for a crime, regardless of how many small crimes are bundled up.

    One reason is that recidivism is usually prevented through other means anyway. Once you're caught, you aren't just released completely unattended; you may have restrictions on movement or things like computer usage. There are ways to monitor people short of physically confining them to a jail cell, and these ways are both cheaper and less disruptive to society.

  12. Re:Constipated Justice System on 'Revenge Porn' Operator Gets 18 Years In Prison · · Score: 0

    But he still didn't commit a violent crime or anything. I could see 18 years if he'd mugged 50 people and killed 3. But that doesn't seem to be what happened. It seems like you could protect society from recidivism by just putting him on supervised parole and restricting his use of a computer. The only people who really have to be locked up for 18 years to protect society, because there is no other way to do so, are really violent people who will kill or at least seriously injure people if you let them out.

  13. Re:Constipated Justice System on 'Revenge Porn' Operator Gets 18 Years In Prison · · Score: 1

    The maximum prison sentence in Denmark for a non-violent crime is 3 years, with very few exceptions. Only mass-murderers get on the order of 18 years. In Denmark I believe there have been fewer than 10 people in the past 50 years to serve a prison sentence that long. Locking people in cages for decades just isn't a thing that is very reasonable to do, as there are other ways to protect society from repeat offenders in all but a very small handful of extreme cases involving violent psychopaths.

  14. Re:Constipated Justice System on 'Revenge Porn' Operator Gets 18 Years In Prison · · Score: 0

    In civilized countries, you don't get 18 years in prison for extortion of $30,000. In Scandinavia you'd get one or two.

  15. Re:Outside their authority? on Court Refuses To Dismiss AT&T Throttling Case · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As I read it (but this is getting into some nitty-gritty agency-jurisdiction law I might misunderstand), the jurisdictional argument is about what "common carrier" status does for oversight. Telecommunications law gives the FCC exclusive authority to regulate common carriers, because they aren't quite normal market participants, but instead more like a regulated utility with special requirements that apply to them. So the FCC is tasked with drawing up those rules and overseeing them, and the FTC doesn't oversee them the way it would oversee other market participants.

    Mobile data did not used to be classified as a common-carrier service, but was reclassified recently (3 weeks ago, in fact). The court found: 1. The fact that AT&T provides a common-carrier mobile service doesn't mean that it automatically is immune from FTC jurisdiction in any mobile-related case. Instead it needs to show that the specific conduct in dispute is related to its provision of common-carrier telecommunications services, and therefore exclusively within FCC jurisdiction; 2. The specific conduct at issue here happened before the reclassification as common carrier, so the FTC properly has jurisdiction.

  16. Re:Buh buh but ComCast is Evil. on Comcast Planning 2Gbps Service, Starting With Atlanta · · Score: 1

    Australia's one of the few parts of the developed world you could find where the ISPs are ripping people off even more than in the USA. :-)

  17. Re:The travel ban is usurpation. on As Trade Restrictions Crumble, Airbnb Offers Rooms In Cuba · · Score: 1

    It also seems weirdly inconsistent. It's legal for Americans to travel to all kinds of countries with authoritarian governments: Uzbekistan, Belarus, Egypt, even North Korea ffs. But traveling to Cuba is illegal for some reason.

  18. Re:How did they get caught? on Silk Road Investigators Charged With Stealing Bitcoin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to the indictment, part of how they were caught is that as part of laundering their proceeds, they tried to strongarm the payment processor Venmo, who had closed their accounts as part of automated fraud detection. Venmo was unhappy with being strongarmed, and sent a complaint to someone higher up at the agency. The agents then tried to suppress the complaint, and simultaneously retaliate against Venmo by trying to start an investigation. That attempted investigation pulled in the IRS, whose investigators thought a bunch of things looked suspicious, and dug up enough dirt to blow the whistle on the agents in this case.

    So I guess in short, they pissed off both a payment company and the IRS.

  19. Re:Just looked her up on Experts: Aim of 2 Degrees Climate Goal Insufficient · · Score: 5, Informative

    The area of geography she studies is how communities/economies are impacted by and adapt to changes in prevailing climates, which seems pretty relevant, depending on what question you're asking. She would be a poor authority on questions like modeling the impact of CO2 on weather, but more within her area if asking questions like, "how easy/difficult would it be for Indonesians to adapt to a 2" ocean-level rise?".

    In terms of the IPCC reports, the research/authorship is divided into three working groups: #1 studies the underlying science; #2 studies impacts & adaptation; #3 studies possible mitigation strategies. She's part of #2.

  20. Unity's had a free version forever on SuperMario 64 Coming To a Browser Near You! · · Score: 1

    They've fiddled with the licensing as part of competition for developers with Valve's Unreal engine, which makes it work for some use-cases where it didn't previously (e.g. the mobile exporter is now free, too) but it's been pretty popular for a while now.

  21. Re:I'd put a 'may' there on Taxpayer Subsidies To ULA To End · · Score: 1

    Yeah I think that's likely: if they become a large company with multiple large contracts, they'll end up spread over the US.

    Heck they're already doing a little bit of spreading out. They have a significant test facility in Texas along with some engineering offices, and are building a new facility in Seattle to build satellites. I don't know if this is strategic/political or just happenstance at this point though. For example I believe a big motivation for the Texas site was that they were able to buy facilities off the defunct Beal Aerospace cheaply.

  22. I'd put a 'may' there on Taxpayer Subsidies To ULA To End · · Score: 4, Insightful

    political pressure is now pushing them hard to open up bidding to multiple companies, which in turn will help lower cost and save the taxpayer money

    That's certainly a possible outcome, and hopefully the one we will see, but I think it's a bit optimistic to say that it will do this. It may do that, but a new contract process may also be a total clusterfuck, depending on how it's structured and overseen. The Air Force might get twice as good things for half the price, or it might get something that doesn't work for half the price, or four things that sort of work for twice the price.

  23. Re:He should live in on Broadband ISP Betrayal Forces Homeowner To Sell New House · · Score: 1

    Isn't that reflective?

  24. Re:You Congresscritters just don't understand on Amazon Blasts FAA On Drone Approvals, Regulations · · Score: 1

    If it's on their own property sure, but if someone is flying an aircraft over my property, I think it's fair to ask for a bit more specific licensing to ensure they're flying only safe, well-maintained, properly operated devices.

  25. Re:homeowner fail on Comcast's Incompetence, Lack of Broadband May Force Developer To Sell Home · · Score: 3, Informative

    My realtor didn't like it because it was an "unusual" offer, but I said it was a contract and I could put any conditions in it I wanted - the seller just had to agree (and did).

    Fwiw with real estate this is tricky; not every contract rider is allowed in every jurisdiction, and some may be allowed but cause complexities. Not saying this particular one wasn't allowed in yours, but you can't generally assume that you can write anything you want into a real-estate transaction and not end up with problems.