Sorry to break it to you, but here in the United States, we practice very little retributive justice. We don't rape rapists or torture torturers, we don't burn down the homes of arsonists. We do, however, kill killers in some states. And our gangs are elected by about 1/3 of society.
There is nothing compelling this guy to go legit. You really think that this hacker is going to go through four years of school, studying law enforcement, and then emigrate to the US to search for pedophiles online?
All that's happened is that authorities have given a green light for hackers to go after evil people online as vigilanties with absolutely no oversight, including this guy. And you think future hackers aren't going to plant evidence on innocent peoples hard drives for notoriety, or passes from the FBI? How do we know that that hasn't happened in this case?
Vigilante 'justice' is not justice at all. It is simply retribution, and will quickly descend into gang warfare if not stopped by impartial authorities. Regular, civilized impartial justice isn't perfect, but it's far better than the alternative.
"This guy could be doing some real garbage cracking, screwing with legit business and good people, but, he didn't."
How do you know he didn't? There is nothing to stop him from doing both good *and* evil. In fact, the FBI seemed to give him a pass on his hacking activities for the good he was doing. What a great opportunity for someone who wanted to do a little evil on the side.
I agree with you. People who have molested children should rot in prison.
But here's the problem. How do we know that this guys wasn't framed? How do we know this guy in Turkey didn't plant those photos there? How do we know that there is even a 'guy' in 'Turkey'? It could be some kind of revenge act from a person across town.
I think one of the worst miscarriages of justice would be to be falsely accused of pedophelia -- even if you eventually cleared your name, people would always suspect you got away with one of the worst crimes imaginable, that you were a monster just looking for a new victim. It would totally ruin an innocent person's life.
I am absolutely against vigilante justice. We need government to do it properly, ot allow for oversight and prevent abuse.
Hut part of me says, how is this different than an anonymous tip? What if someone called the police and said "I was using my roommate's computer and found these images..." and the police asked him to go in an investigate further?
"What they are trying to protect against is the scenario where you work for them on a contract, and without their knowledge, embed one of your prior inventions into their product, and four years later, when they've become the next Google, you step up and ask for a massive amount of money because they are infringing on something that you wound up patenting."
If that's what they want, then why don't they say that in their contract? Something like "Employee will not use tech that they personally own in projects..."
Instead the wording actually covers things the employee invented prior to employment, on their own time, and now the company wants to own it. And we have seen examples of companies who have gone after former employees after they got rich for an invention they alone created. Corporations are amoral money-making machines. Protect yourself in any way you can.
I totally understand where you're coming from. I get really frustrated when I'm working hard on something and I see other people chatting, snacking, laughing, etc.
However, are you sure that the deliverables are late because your guys are ogling chicks on myspace?
My experience has been management will give you as much work as they can, up until projects start becoming late and affecting business. There will never be the perfect balance of just enough work to fill the 8 hour days of all your employees. Sometimes there will be downtime and sometimes there will be overtime.
However, to expect your workers to be silently plugging away at their desk for four hours at a stretch is a recipe for stress, which leads to stress, burnout, fights, and lost productivity. Human beings are social animals, not bees. We get work done in friendly, cooperative groups. Part of being a normal, social human being is a little small talk, a few jokes, and checking out chicks (on myspace). It's unreasonable to expect them to be worker bees on the clock and do all of the human activities 'on their own time'. If you want healthy, happy, productive workers, expect a little bit of socializing during work hours.
Of course, if it is getting excessive, you have every right to hold them accountable. However, if you happen to wander in just at that moment they are goffing off, you could cut them a little slack. I would expect you could tell if they are pulling their weight or not by milestones and progess reports, not what they are doing at the moment you happen to walk by.
I agree that we need to continue to constantly increase our security measures, but I believe there is a danger in supposed security measures which actually *don't* increase security. It causes the users of such measure to relax their guard, assuming that they are safe when they actually may not be.
As far as anti-counterfeiting measures, the 9/11 terrorists had valid passports and IDs, so how exactly would this prevent terrorism? If an immigration official lets his guard down because a person has an RFID passport, he may be ignoring other tip-offs that would alert him to suspicious activity. This would probably only really effect illegal immigration.
Again, no one is saying that we shouldn't increase security measures. But let's not claim that this is a panacea, or going to do something that is actually can't. Americans seem to have the belief that some simple technology will solve any problem we encounter. The reality is that we have to hire and train competent personnel in immigration and security. Mass surveillance, face recognition, gait recognition, etc. will not keep us safe from terrorism; motivated terrorists will always outsmart the machine or system. What we need is human intelligence, building contacts and infiltrating groups. These sorts of technological fixes are just to pacify jittery Americans into thinking that something is being done.
Passports are valid for 10 years upon issue, IIRC. Are you telling me that secure passport tech will slowly be phased in over 10 years? Because we all know how often Americans travel overseas.
If anything, this will raise the value of existing non-RFID passports, since they are more easily modified to indentify someone else.
Re:Unfounded Criticism
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Before I got mugged;)
Re:Unfounded Criticism
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 1
I have no military experience, but just from my experience being mugged and pick-pocketed, it seems really out of touch to think that a person who is patrolling a war zone doesn't have enough concentration or survival instinct to be running at 110% attention, regardless of gameboys and ipods.
"Not even Richard Nixon went around claiming that he was just "above the law because he says so" but apparently these people think that it is a valid legal principle."
FROST: So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.
NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
FROST: By definition.
NIXON: Exactly. Exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position.
According to wikipedia, companies do not have to give full and complete accounting of their records if it the president gives them permission in the name of national security.
"Companies are permitted by US securities law (15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A)) to refrain from properly accounting for their use of assets in matters involving national security, when properly authorized by an agency or department head acting under authorization by the President. This legalese essentially means that companies can falsify their accounting reports and lie about their activities when the President decides that it is in the interests of national security to do so. President Bush issued a presidential memorandum on May 5, 2006 delegating authority to make such a designation to Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, just as the NSA call database scandal appeared in the media." [Emphasis mine]
I agree with you almost entirely -- all except for the term Islamofascist. The Islamists are actually Islamic Theocratists -- they seek rule by religious institutions and religious law. That is the system in place now in Iran, where Sharia law and imams are the ultimate decision makers.
I can't help but find it disturbing that the Bush administration would consistently mischaracterize the enemy as fascists. If they enemy is fascist, we are in no danger of becoming fascist ourselves because that's who we are fighting, right? If we are fighting fascists, we must be the opposite of fascists, right? It couldn't be that we might become fascists fighting theocratists...
As I understand it, this 'secret wiretapping' isn't really wiretapping at all. Wiretapping has a technical meaning where you tap into an exsting line, but in popular parlance it means listening in on whatever electronic communication is going on.
Anywho, what the Bush administration is apparently secretly doing is collecting the who-called-who-when data of calls to build a social networking chart. The benedit of such charts is that it allows you to detect cell groups just by looking at it -- or with mathematical analysis. The problem that governments have with the cell networks is that they are hard to detect and infiltrate. The members of the cell just know each other and their leader -- no one else. They wouldn't know members of another cell even if they saw them. But, if you have a social networking chart that includes everyone, cell structures almost pop out at you.
In my eyes, the problem with the government having this kind of power is that, if the *wrong people* ever came into power, they could easily decimate any organized resistance, almost overnight. Very effective for maintaining the social order.
Well, he might resign if he gets impeached. Nixon didn't resign out of conscience; it wasn't until he was impeached and it was clear he would be convicted that he did resign.
Jailing someone, or killing someone and taking credit for it, would create a martyr. The country would rise up against the people who perpetrated this travesty. A judge would wait in jail, looking like a political prisoner, while the whole world protests.
However, if you really want judges to fall in line, simply suicide one of them. Anyone who says they were murdered is a conspiracy nut. Meanwhile, all the other judges will get the message. If you decide to buck the system, your death will be assured and meaningless.
O'Reilly will say that this judge is a radical and a liberal, is legislating from the bench, and is supporting Al Qaida. About the Supreme Court, he said that it was packed with liberals when the court ruled that the president does not have limitless power to set up military tribunals.
Folks, it isn't over until it's over. The ruling can still be appealed. Bush nominated judge Samuel Alito to the supreme court. Alito subscribes to the notion of the unitary executive, which basically means that anything the president does is legal, by definition. Alito may be sympathetic to the administration's view on this. He is just one of nine judges, but I point him out to show you who Bush is appointing.
Remember the Total Information Awareness project, proposed by Admiral Poindexter, shortly after 9/11? It was to be a gigantic database of all electronic information -- the complete, ongoing electronic record of every US citizen. Of course, because of public outcry, the project was defunded. However, the project has simply been broken apart and pursued. Wikipedia says "An unknown number of TIA's functions have been merged under the codename "Topsail".
We don't know the full story, yet we are being given some very clear, bright red flags. Why does the government need to keep track of every single citizen?
Slashdot Mirror
"Justice is retribution."
Not everyone agress with you. Retributive Justice is just one theory of justice.
Sorry to break it to you, but here in the United States, we practice very little retributive justice. We don't rape rapists or torture torturers, we don't burn down the homes of arsonists. We do, however, kill killers in some states. And our gangs are elected by about 1/3 of society.
There is nothing compelling this guy to go legit. You really think that this hacker is going to go through four years of school, studying law enforcement, and then emigrate to the US to search for pedophiles online?
All that's happened is that authorities have given a green light for hackers to go after evil people online as vigilanties with absolutely no oversight, including this guy. And you think future hackers aren't going to plant evidence on innocent peoples hard drives for notoriety, or passes from the FBI? How do we know that that hasn't happened in this case?
Vigilante 'justice' is not justice at all. It is simply retribution, and will quickly descend into gang warfare if not stopped by impartial authorities. Regular, civilized impartial justice isn't perfect, but it's far better than the alternative.
Another point:
"This guy could be doing some real garbage cracking, screwing with legit business and good people, but, he didn't."
How do you know he didn't? There is nothing to stop him from doing both good *and* evil. In fact, the FBI seemed to give him a pass on his hacking activities for the good he was doing. What a great opportunity for someone who wanted to do a little evil on the side.
I agree with you. People who have molested children should rot in prison.
But here's the problem. How do we know that this guys wasn't framed? How do we know this guy in Turkey didn't plant those photos there? How do we know that there is even a 'guy' in 'Turkey'? It could be some kind of revenge act from a person across town.
I think one of the worst miscarriages of justice would be to be falsely accused of pedophelia -- even if you eventually cleared your name, people would always suspect you got away with one of the worst crimes imaginable, that you were a monster just looking for a new victim. It would totally ruin an innocent person's life.
I am absolutely against vigilante justice. We need government to do it properly, ot allow for oversight and prevent abuse.
Hut part of me says, how is this different than an anonymous tip? What if someone called the police and said "I was using my roommate's computer and found these images..." and the police asked him to go in an investigate further?
Probably the evidence was the logs of the downloads correlated with her IP address or username on the filesharing network.
"What they are trying to protect against is the scenario where you work for them on a contract, and without their knowledge, embed one of your prior inventions into their product, and four years later, when they've become the next Google, you step up and ask for a massive amount of money because they are infringing on something that you wound up patenting."
If that's what they want, then why don't they say that in their contract? Something like "Employee will not use tech that they personally own in projects..."
Instead the wording actually covers things the employee invented prior to employment, on their own time, and now the company wants to own it. And we have seen examples of companies who have gone after former employees after they got rich for an invention they alone created. Corporations are amoral money-making machines. Protect yourself in any way you can.
Drug tests usually just require a urine sample. Or a hair sample.
What about cloned sex workers?
I totally understand where you're coming from. I get really frustrated when I'm working hard on something and I see other people chatting, snacking, laughing, etc.
However, are you sure that the deliverables are late because your guys are ogling chicks on myspace?
My experience has been management will give you as much work as they can, up until projects start becoming late and affecting business. There will never be the perfect balance of just enough work to fill the 8 hour days of all your employees. Sometimes there will be downtime and sometimes there will be overtime.
However, to expect your workers to be silently plugging away at their desk for four hours at a stretch is a recipe for stress, which leads to stress, burnout, fights, and lost productivity. Human beings are social animals, not bees. We get work done in friendly, cooperative groups. Part of being a normal, social human being is a little small talk, a few jokes, and checking out chicks (on myspace). It's unreasonable to expect them to be worker bees on the clock and do all of the human activities 'on their own time'. If you want healthy, happy, productive workers, expect a little bit of socializing during work hours.
Of course, if it is getting excessive, you have every right to hold them accountable. However, if you happen to wander in just at that moment they are goffing off, you could cut them a little slack. I would expect you could tell if they are pulling their weight or not by milestones and progess reports, not what they are doing at the moment you happen to walk by.
"Employees for one may be more likely to sit around browsing the web rather than doing the work they're assigned."
How about treating your employees like responsible adults instead of toddlers?
You know, if you don't chain employees to their desks, they might get up and wander around all day, instead of working.
I agree that we need to continue to constantly increase our security measures, but I believe there is a danger in supposed security measures which actually *don't* increase security. It causes the users of such measure to relax their guard, assuming that they are safe when they actually may not be.
As far as anti-counterfeiting measures, the 9/11 terrorists had valid passports and IDs, so how exactly would this prevent terrorism? If an immigration official lets his guard down because a person has an RFID passport, he may be ignoring other tip-offs that would alert him to suspicious activity. This would probably only really effect illegal immigration.
Again, no one is saying that we shouldn't increase security measures. But let's not claim that this is a panacea, or going to do something that is actually can't. Americans seem to have the belief that some simple technology will solve any problem we encounter. The reality is that we have to hire and train competent personnel in immigration and security. Mass surveillance, face recognition, gait recognition, etc. will not keep us safe from terrorism; motivated terrorists will always outsmart the machine or system. What we need is human intelligence, building contacts and infiltrating groups. These sorts of technological fixes are just to pacify jittery Americans into thinking that something is being done.
It's a small step to get people prepared for implanted RFID chips. Same reason they want to implant soldiers and medical patients.
Passports are valid for 10 years upon issue, IIRC. Are you telling me that secure passport tech will slowly be phased in over 10 years? Because we all know how often Americans travel overseas.
If anything, this will raise the value of existing non-RFID passports, since they are more easily modified to indentify someone else.
Before I got mugged ;)
I have no military experience, but just from my experience being mugged and pick-pocketed, it seems really out of touch to think that a person who is patrolling a war zone doesn't have enough concentration or survival instinct to be running at 110% attention, regardless of gameboys and ipods.
"Not even Richard Nixon went around claiming that he was just "above the law because he says so" but apparently these people think that it is a valid legal principle."
Actually, Richard Nixon *did* believe that the president's actions were always legal, by definition:
FROST: So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.
NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
FROST: By definition.
NIXON: Exactly. Exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position.
According to wikipedia, companies do not have to give full and complete accounting of their records if it the president gives them permission in the name of national security.
"Companies are permitted by US securities law (15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A)) to refrain from properly accounting for their use of assets in matters involving national security, when properly authorized by an agency or department head acting under authorization by the President. This legalese essentially means that companies can falsify their accounting reports and lie about their activities when the President decides that it is in the interests of national security to do so. President Bush issued a presidential memorandum on May 5, 2006 delegating authority to make such a designation to Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, just as the NSA call database scandal appeared in the media." [Emphasis mine]
Hey, everything changed after 9/11. We live in a different world now. 9/11 9/11 9/11.
I agree with you almost entirely -- all except for the term Islamofascist. The Islamists are actually Islamic Theocratists -- they seek rule by religious institutions and religious law. That is the system in place now in Iran, where Sharia law and imams are the ultimate decision makers.
Fascism is, as Mussolini defined it, when the interest of the state comes before any interest of an individual. Al-Qaida and the other Islamic radicals we are fighting are not facists. They are theocratists and want the rule of Sharia law and Clerics.
I can't help but find it disturbing that the Bush administration would consistently mischaracterize the enemy as fascists. If they enemy is fascist, we are in no danger of becoming fascist ourselves because that's who we are fighting, right? If we are fighting fascists, we must be the opposite of fascists, right? It couldn't be that we might become fascists fighting theocratists...
As I understand it, this 'secret wiretapping' isn't really wiretapping at all. Wiretapping has a technical meaning where you tap into an exsting line, but in popular parlance it means listening in on whatever electronic communication is going on.
Anywho, what the Bush administration is apparently secretly doing is collecting the who-called-who-when data of calls to build a social networking chart. The benedit of such charts is that it allows you to detect cell groups just by looking at it -- or with mathematical analysis. The problem that governments have with the cell networks is that they are hard to detect and infiltrate. The members of the cell just know each other and their leader -- no one else. They wouldn't know members of another cell even if they saw them. But, if you have a social networking chart that includes everyone, cell structures almost pop out at you.
In my eyes, the problem with the government having this kind of power is that, if the *wrong people* ever came into power, they could easily decimate any organized resistance, almost overnight. Very effective for maintaining the social order.
Well, he might resign if he gets impeached. Nixon didn't resign out of conscience; it wasn't until he was impeached and it was clear he would be convicted that he did resign.
Jailing someone, or killing someone and taking credit for it, would create a martyr. The country would rise up against the people who perpetrated this travesty. A judge would wait in jail, looking like a political prisoner, while the whole world protests.
However, if you really want judges to fall in line, simply suicide one of them. Anyone who says they were murdered is a conspiracy nut. Meanwhile, all the other judges will get the message. If you decide to buck the system, your death will be assured and meaningless.
O'Reilly will say that this judge is a radical and a liberal, is legislating from the bench, and is supporting Al Qaida. About the Supreme Court, he said that it was packed with liberals when the court ruled that the president does not have limitless power to set up military tribunals.
Folks, it isn't over until it's over. The ruling can still be appealed. Bush nominated judge Samuel Alito to the supreme court. Alito subscribes to the notion of the unitary executive, which basically means that anything the president does is legal, by definition. Alito may be sympathetic to the administration's view on this. He is just one of nine judges, but I point him out to show you who Bush is appointing.
Remember the Total Information Awareness project, proposed by Admiral Poindexter, shortly after 9/11? It was to be a gigantic database of all electronic information -- the complete, ongoing electronic record of every US citizen. Of course, because of public outcry, the project was defunded. However, the project has simply been broken apart and pursued. Wikipedia says "An unknown number of TIA's functions have been merged under the codename "Topsail".
We don't know the full story, yet we are being given some very clear, bright red flags. Why does the government need to keep track of every single citizen?