Also, AT&T spent $15.4 million lobbying Washington last year, the eighth-highest of all corporations. And it has ties to the White House — Obama's chief of staff, William Daley, is a former president of SBC Communications Inc., which bought AT&T in 2005, creating the current telecom giant.
This isn't just coziness, it's near collusion.
No, it's malfeasance in office if not outright treason.
your probably not rich enough to have a significant safety net, and I'm sure your industry is next on the block and you probably aren't indispensable at all.)
In the modern era, because things change so quickly, it is the people who are flexible and able to learn new skills that will do well. This may not be fair, but neither is life. So if my industry goes, I will be flexible and adapt to my new situation. It's what you have to do.
That only works as long as there's something left to do. Look at the countries which have no industrial base and no natural resources they can sell to buy technology from those who do. Then ask yourself whether you'd want to live there. It has been decided that America is to become a third-world country, dependent upon the largesse (or otherwise) of other countries. It won't happen overnight, there is a lot of inertia, but it is in the program. Accept that fact, and then maybe you can find something to do about it. Just "being flexible" is not going to fix the fundamental problems which our industrial economy is facing, and those problems come from the top.
It's not my job to manage the computer, to install stuff on it, or to fix it when it breaks. Leave that to the computer people.
While simultaneously keeping detailed documentation as to why your productivity and quality of work are not what they should be. Forcing workers to deal with substandard tools in order to save a few bucks is shortsighted and costly.in the long run.
Short of destroying the drive with explosives/thermite there's little that can be done in as short of time as it takes to serve a warrant and arrest a person when you know that there's only one person in the house. Surveillance can determine the best time to do it by eliminating the number of people inside. You can likely catch the person coming home or going to work without needing to bust in with full tactics gear. Once you serve the warrant outside there's not much the person can do to destroy that data and if they do... that looks even worse for them come trial time.
Seriously... encryption is by far the best way to go. The last Federal ruling on that subject that I read was pretty clear: if the encryption key is in your head, the cops can't force it out of you. It's part of your "personal papers and effects", and is not subject to unreasonable search and seizure. Write that password down, or use an easily-guessable/crackable one and you're screwed.
The person under arrest is only potentially a child pornographer.
Not to these guys, apparently. They figured they had him cold. They were wrong. What I see happening here is what I saw in the RIAA cases: people tend to trust information that was generated or provided by a computer because they don't have the mental tools to evaluate it's reliability. So they figure it's reliable, and move on.
The reason for the increasing occurrence of these types of raids have been pointed out above. Mainly for budgetary and exercise purposes.
Not much different from an intern being allowed (or encouraged) to perform unnecessary procedures on patients without their consent, for "training purposes."
Call me a bleeding liberal if you will, but the police are more afraid of lawsuits than they are of armed individual resistance.
Sorry, that's a crock. In my State (as I mentioned somewhere else) police have been immunized from such things. They don't have to worry about civil or criminal suits from mere civilians. So you really had better be careful here: they work for us. Keep that firmly in mind.
This has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. This has to do with training and accountability. Nothing more. One does not have to be a genius to follow the rules: it's when the people making the rules are dicks, and don't hold cops accountable when they screw up, that society has a problem.
Yes, it is. I don't believe he's really thought this through, or had to suffer the effects of overreaching law enforcement. Cops are civil servants, not lords and masters. It's about time the We the People got that through our collective heads.
Their death rates might actually go down and effectiveness go up if they worked to get more cooperation from the general public, than if they kept behaving like uniformed thugs and gangsters.
Ha... I think you meant uninformed thugs and gangsters. Besides, cops are supposed to identify themselves as police. If they don't, and their target decides that he's suffering a home invasion and opens up on them... well. Who's at fault there?
So why don't you make sure you know what you're getting into first?
You mean... actual police work? Due diligence, that sort of thing.
They're less common than they used to be. Part of that is the immunity cops have to any consequences of their actions. In my State, I discovered a few years ago, a cop is immune from any consequences resulting from false arrest. You can't even take him to court if he beats the crap out of you and arrests you for someone else's crime. That kind of attitude on the part of our lawmakers goes a long way to explaining why law enforcement is getting so arrogant and careless.
a highly confrontational dangerous situation where there is real danger to life of both LE and innocent civilians.
Well, once they've successfully removed all firearms and sharp objects from the civilian population, the only danger to life will be to those civilians.
Well, if you have ISP logs on whose router the ip was assigned to at a given time, identification works.
Does it? What if the clock/calendar in that logging computer is off, and what if someone committing a crime using the alleged IP happens to relinquish it in time for it to be assigned to you? Now you're fucked, and he gets off scott-free.
You don't trust a computer log when it comes to matters like this. ISP logging systems were never designed nor intended to be used as evidence: they're part of network management where strict accuracy is not required. Fact is, the data is not infallible, not irrefutable... even if law enforcement and the courts treat it as such out of complete ignorance. Furthermore, even if they could absolutely, unerringly determine that a particular IP was assigned to your router/gateway during the commission of a computer crime... that does not mean it was you committing the crime. You only have to look at the RIAA's failed lawsuit mill to realize how flawed the idea that IP=Identity really is.
And we know this exactly how? As I recall, blackberries contain close to 100% closed-source code. This means that they can include any sort of extra "feature" that they don't tell you about, and you have no way of discovering it's there (until it's too late).
Now that Symbian went closed-source again, about the only major OS that you can have any hope of trusting, privacy-wise, is Android. iOS is closed-source, Windows Mobile is closed-source... heck, I don't necessarily trust the version of Android my carrier ships OTA so I run a third-party ROM (Cyanogen, as it happens.) If there was ever a reason to use an open source operating system, this is a damned good one.
Actually it's rather severely limited by the fact that there's no roaming. I suppose if you never leave a large city it might work, but as far as I'm concerned the fact that Virgin's plans only allow you access to the Sprint network (unlike my Sprint plan, which lets me roam on Verizon when needed) makes them a sad joke.
I'm on T-Mobile, and my plan ($65/month) includes 300 minutes of voice (I average maybe 30 minutes, so that's more than I happen to need) and unlimited data (5 Gb cap w/throttling) but, most germane to this conversation, unlimited voice and data roaming. Doesn't matter whose network.
Yeah, there are a lot of reasons I'm thoroughly torqued off at AT&T right now.
and got some plus votes, but overall most of the "OMG APPLE IS EVIL" people got the higher votes, without any rational explanation.
Funny... I'm about as anti-Apple as anyone and invariably get modded Troll for making even oblique anti-Apple references. Even when I'm just criticizing Steve Jobs, or some company policy, and not any specific Apple product or feature. So I disagree with you in your premise that Slashdot is especially pro-Apple: I've experienced quite the opposite. You must have just been lucky, if you can call it that.
Does it have GPS? Better yet, does it have OnStar, or something like it?
No, and no. And if it did, I'd find that antenna and snip it.
Do you have internet service at your house? Does that include a router? Does that router have an IP address handed out by your ISP?
Well, sure, but that's not significantly different than the phone company (who is often your ISP anyways) knowing that this phone number goes to this location. And furthermore, your being in your own home is not especially noteworthy.
Mobile tracking, now that's a different subject entirely, and opens up a whole new can of privacy worms. And you're right, we are tracked a ridiculous number of ways, from GPS to video cameras. Really, it's kinda getting out of hand, I think.
"My kids are getting SanDisk media players, and a phone who's GPS tracker can be switched to activation on 911 calls only."
And you KNOW it only activates on 911 calls... because... THEY tell you that. Ok, and of course, since it isn't an Apple phone, THEY would NEVER lie about that, right? I mean, we know Apple lies all the time, but THEY won't lie. Whoever THEY are. Yeah, ok.
It's called playing the odds. You know what a particular company is doing, you avoid that company if you don't like that. Their competition says they don't do that... well, at least you have the chance that they're telling the truth, which is better than the first option. And if you go with a phone that has an open-source operating system that is maintained by a group that a good track record and is not beholden to any of the major players, you just improved the odds even more.
No... we just recognize that they truly are out to get us. That means different things to different people, but the reality is that electronic media and insecure computing systems are a liability. How great is that liability? Well, that depends upon who is out to get you. It may just be advertisers, it may be someone's lawyer, it may be a pedophile, rapist, burglar or other criminal, it might even be the government. Given that cops in some States carry portable readers capable of ripping data from hundreds, if not thousands, of cell phone models ought to make you think twice about calling the security-minded "paranoid." The world has a *lot* of bright people whose only interest is getting hold of that which you would like to keep private. Remember that.
Apple made terrible software, and they are now informing us that they will continue to do so.
Really? And what's the standard procedure for dealing with 'terrible software'? Apple stock is now over 300 dollars an ounce.. er.. share.. because of their 'terrible software'.
Huh? "Terrible software" and "highly marketable software" are two entirely different things. Software does not have to be great to make billions of dollars: just ask Bill Gates and his brainchild, who have been successfully marketing terrible software for decades. The GP has a point: software that is this careless with user's personal data is terrible, and needs to have some changes made. Encryption at the very least: not keeping it in the first place would be better.
The OS will require specific support to make those deleted sectors unreadable, not just deallocated. The GP is absolutely correct: that file (and any other file containing significant personal data) should be encrypted. It's not hard, the code to do so is readily available for any Unix variant (which both iOS and Android are) and there really is no excuse for leaving it in plaintext. That's indefensible.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, AT&T spent $15.4 million lobbying Washington last year, the eighth-highest of all corporations. And it has ties to the White House — Obama's chief of staff, William Daley, is a former president of SBC Communications Inc., which bought AT&T in 2005, creating the current telecom giant. This isn't just coziness, it's near collusion.
No, it's malfeasance in office if not outright treason.
Choosing between AT&T and Comcast is like choosing between leprosy and Aids.
To paraphrase Ben Franklin: "A consumer between two giant corporations is like a fish between two cats."
your probably not rich enough to have a significant safety net, and I'm sure your industry is next on the block and you probably aren't indispensable at all.)
In the modern era, because things change so quickly, it is the people who are flexible and able to learn new skills that will do well. This may not be fair, but neither is life. So if my industry goes, I will be flexible and adapt to my new situation. It's what you have to do.
That only works as long as there's something left to do. Look at the countries which have no industrial base and no natural resources they can sell to buy technology from those who do. Then ask yourself whether you'd want to live there. It has been decided that America is to become a third-world country, dependent upon the largesse (or otherwise) of other countries. It won't happen overnight, there is a lot of inertia, but it is in the program. Accept that fact, and then maybe you can find something to do about it. Just "being flexible" is not going to fix the fundamental problems which our industrial economy is facing, and those problems come from the top.
It's not my job to manage the computer, to install stuff on it, or to fix it when it breaks. Leave that to the computer people.
While simultaneously keeping detailed documentation as to why your productivity and quality of work are not what they should be. Forcing workers to deal with substandard tools in order to save a few bucks is shortsighted and costly.in the long run.
Short of destroying the drive with explosives/thermite there's little that can be done in as short of time as it takes to serve a warrant and arrest a person when you know that there's only one person in the house. Surveillance can determine the best time to do it by eliminating the number of people inside. You can likely catch the person coming home or going to work without needing to bust in with full tactics gear. Once you serve the warrant outside there's not much the person can do to destroy that data and if they do... that looks even worse for them come trial time.
Seriously ... encryption is by far the best way to go. The last Federal ruling on that subject that I read was pretty clear: if the encryption key is in your head, the cops can't force it out of you. It's part of your "personal papers and effects", and is not subject to unreasonable search and seizure. Write that password down, or use an easily-guessable/crackable one and you're screwed.
The person under arrest is only potentially a child pornographer.
Not to these guys, apparently. They figured they had him cold. They were wrong. What I see happening here is what I saw in the RIAA cases: people tend to trust information that was generated or provided by a computer because they don't have the mental tools to evaluate it's reliability. So they figure it's reliable, and move on.
The reason for the increasing occurrence of these types of raids have been pointed out above. Mainly for budgetary and exercise purposes.
Not much different from an intern being allowed (or encouraged) to perform unnecessary procedures on patients without their consent, for "training purposes."
Call me a bleeding liberal if you will, but the police are more afraid of lawsuits than they are of armed individual resistance.
Sorry, that's a crock. In my State (as I mentioned somewhere else) police have been immunized from such things. They don't have to worry about civil or criminal suits from mere civilians. So you really had better be careful here: they work for us. Keep that firmly in mind.
They will not arrest you if they are intelligent.
This has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. This has to do with training and accountability. Nothing more. One does not have to be a genius to follow the rules: it's when the people making the rules are dicks, and don't hold cops accountable when they screw up, that society has a problem.
Yours is a very dangerous attitude.
Yes, it is. I don't believe he's really thought this through, or had to suffer the effects of overreaching law enforcement. Cops are civil servants, not lords and masters. It's about time the We the People got that through our collective heads.
Their death rates might actually go down and effectiveness go up if they worked to get more cooperation from the general public, than if they kept behaving like uniformed thugs and gangsters.
Ha ... I think you meant uninformed thugs and gangsters. Besides, cops are supposed to identify themselves as police. If they don't, and their target decides that he's suffering a home invasion and opens up on them ... well. Who's at fault there?
So why don't you make sure you know what you're getting into first?
You mean ... actual police work? Due diligence, that sort of thing.
They're less common than they used to be. Part of that is the immunity cops have to any consequences of their actions. In my State, I discovered a few years ago, a cop is immune from any consequences resulting from false arrest. You can't even take him to court if he beats the crap out of you and arrests you for someone else's crime. That kind of attitude on the part of our lawmakers goes a long way to explaining why law enforcement is getting so arrogant and careless.
a highly confrontational dangerous situation where there is real danger to life of both LE and innocent civilians.
Well, once they've successfully removed all firearms and sharp objects from the civilian population, the only danger to life will be to those civilians.
Well, if you have ISP logs on whose router the ip was assigned to at a given time, identification works.
Does it? What if the clock/calendar in that logging computer is off, and what if someone committing a crime using the alleged IP happens to relinquish it in time for it to be assigned to you? Now you're fucked, and he gets off scott-free.
... even if law enforcement and the courts treat it as such out of complete ignorance. Furthermore, even if they could absolutely, unerringly determine that a particular IP was assigned to your router/gateway during the commission of a computer crime ... that does not mean it was you committing the crime. You only have to look at the RIAA's failed lawsuit mill to realize how flawed the idea that IP=Identity really is.
You don't trust a computer log when it comes to matters like this. ISP logging systems were never designed nor intended to be used as evidence: they're part of network management where strict accuracy is not required. Fact is, the data is not infallible, not irrefutable
And we know this exactly how? As I recall, blackberries contain close to 100% closed-source code. This means that they can include any sort of extra "feature" that they don't tell you about, and you have no way of discovering it's there (until it's too late).
Now that Symbian went closed-source again, about the only major OS that you can have any hope of trusting, privacy-wise, is Android. iOS is closed-source, Windows Mobile is closed-source ... heck, I don't necessarily trust the version of Android my carrier ships OTA so I run a third-party ROM (Cyanogen, as it happens.) If there was ever a reason to use an open source operating system, this is a damned good one.
Actually it's rather severely limited by the fact that there's no roaming. I suppose if you never leave a large city it might work, but as far as I'm concerned the fact that Virgin's plans only allow you access to the Sprint network (unlike my Sprint plan, which lets me roam on Verizon when needed) makes them a sad joke.
I'm on T-Mobile, and my plan ($65/month) includes 300 minutes of voice (I average maybe 30 minutes, so that's more than I happen to need) and unlimited data (5 Gb cap w/throttling) but, most germane to this conversation, unlimited voice and data roaming. Doesn't matter whose network.
Yeah, there are a lot of reasons I'm thoroughly torqued off at AT&T right now.
and got some plus votes, but overall most of the "OMG APPLE IS EVIL" people got the higher votes, without any rational explanation.
Funny ... I'm about as anti-Apple as anyone and invariably get modded Troll for making even oblique anti-Apple references. Even when I'm just criticizing Steve Jobs, or some company policy, and not any specific Apple product or feature. So I disagree with you in your premise that Slashdot is especially pro-Apple: I've experienced quite the opposite. You must have just been lucky, if you can call it that.
Instead of a "Smart Phone"... Apple, Windows, Android... pffft give me a PC-DOS based phone :P
Then I can write my own apps in GWBasic :)
Ha ... well, I can't give you DOS, but there is this.
Does it have GPS? Better yet, does it have OnStar, or something like it?
No, and no. And if it did, I'd find that antenna and snip it.
Do you have internet service at your house? Does that include a router? Does that router have an IP address handed out by your ISP?
Well, sure, but that's not significantly different than the phone company (who is often your ISP anyways) knowing that this phone number goes to this location. And furthermore, your being in your own home is not especially noteworthy.
Mobile tracking, now that's a different subject entirely, and opens up a whole new can of privacy worms. And you're right, we are tracked a ridiculous number of ways, from GPS to video cameras. Really, it's kinda getting out of hand, I think.
Since MS will mainly be making their money off of software licenses they could create a campaign to target this.
Are you kidding? Microsoft might say they aren't interested in ad revenue but that would be a lie.
Cyanogenmod. Yeah, I know, I'm a fan. But it's pretty non-evil.
"My kids are getting SanDisk media players, and a phone who's GPS tracker can be switched to activation on 911 calls only."
And you KNOW it only activates on 911 calls ... because ... THEY tell you that. Ok, and of course, since it isn't an Apple phone, THEY would NEVER lie about that, right? I mean, we know Apple lies all the time, but THEY won't lie. Whoever THEY are. Yeah, ok.
It's called playing the odds. You know what a particular company is doing, you avoid that company if you don't like that. Their competition says they don't do that ... well, at least you have the chance that they're telling the truth, which is better than the first option. And if you go with a phone that has an open-source operating system that is maintained by a group that a good track record and is not beholden to any of the major players, you just improved the odds even more.
You slashdotters are always so fucking paranoid.
No ... we just recognize that they truly are out to get us. That means different things to different people, but the reality is that electronic media and insecure computing systems are a liability. How great is that liability? Well, that depends upon who is out to get you. It may just be advertisers, it may be someone's lawyer, it may be a pedophile, rapist, burglar or other criminal, it might even be the government. Given that cops in some States carry portable readers capable of ripping data from hundreds, if not thousands, of cell phone models ought to make you think twice about calling the security-minded "paranoid." The world has a *lot* of bright people whose only interest is getting hold of that which you would like to keep private. Remember that.
Apple made terrible software, and they are now informing us that they will continue to do so.
Really? And what's the standard procedure for dealing with 'terrible software'? Apple stock is now over 300 dollars an ounce.. er.. share.. because of their 'terrible software'.
Huh? "Terrible software" and "highly marketable software" are two entirely different things. Software does not have to be great to make billions of dollars: just ask Bill Gates and his brainchild, who have been successfully marketing terrible software for decades. The GP has a point: software that is this careless with user's personal data is terrible, and needs to have some changes made. Encryption at the very least: not keeping it in the first place would be better.
then remove temp files.
The OS will require specific support to make those deleted sectors unreadable, not just deallocated. The GP is absolutely correct: that file (and any other file containing significant personal data) should be encrypted. It's not hard, the code to do so is readily available for any Unix variant (which both iOS and Android are) and there really is no excuse for leaving it in plaintext. That's indefensible.