Which, I'd like to add, is basically the only spam I ever get. That, and "your email (that you never sent) was spam filtered/contained a virus" spam. You'd think people setting up these filters would know that the return address is never valid, but I've heard it suggested that those "we filtered your email" messages are a form of advertising.
Nothing like multiplying a problem to make it go away! Morons...
I hate how all you stupid fucks automatically declare all opinions of Americans as ignorant.
Know what I hate? When someone (American or otherwise) is shown to be ignorant, and yet still takes up the pissy self-righteous I-have-a-right-to-my-hairbrained-opinion attitude you've got.
But I love how someone pointing out that ignorance is not a point of view means they must not be American. Yeah, I bet non-Americans think the same thing.
I'd say that his statement wasn't ignorant, but that the actions of the British fucktards who jumped him were. The British should get the fuck out of Ireland and Scottland, just like the US should feed the Jews to the arabs
Case in point. He admitted that what he said was ignorant. He had no idea why the Brits -- even his friends -- reacted in the way they did, and only after some Google searching did he begin to understand. He probably had little to no clue about U.S. involvement in the situation. So when you say he wasn't ignorant, you're wrong. He at least expressed some humility about it; you're showing the "typical American" igno-hubris that has become our stereotype. Thanks!
Though I'll agree that getting violent over it was pretty stupid. What do you expect in a bar, though? Don't we all know the rule about politics and religion (Ireland being both) in bars?
If you think I was too harsh, well, what can I say, thats what you get for expressing your ignorant and unwelcome opinion on Slashdot, which happens to be hosted in America... fuck face...
Speaking of ignorant, you know I'm sitting here in the U.S., right? Oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to assume you didn't know what you're talking about even though the words you type prove you don't. How un-American of me!
Try reading again. He said "you are really really not allowed to say this" and "we're not in the mood for that talk coming from you". To me, that sounds like an endorsement of the beating this guy took.
Yeah, that's what I read the first time. "... and therefore I think it's okay that you were beaten" is your own addition. Why don't you consider it to be an endorsement for his friends' mere eye rolling? Or why don't you consider it to be what it is: a statement about the emotion that underlies both reactions, shoving and eye-rolling.
I think this is a problem: people unable to differentiate between causes and justifications. Like discussing why insurgents are attacking us in Iraq, what their motivations are, without saying that the attacks are therefore good. Or saying that 9/11 was not some attack out of the blue in response to nothing, and yet still was an unjustifiable act of terrorism. This is the kind of nuance we need right now.
"There are rational reasons for this behavior" is not an endorsement of the behavior. Thinking otherwise is dangerous, because you're only recourse then is to consider any bad behaviors to be the result of insanity, with no cause that you can address. That's why the only thing we've come up with to address terrorism is: kill terrorists. That's all you've got, when there can be no underlying cause without justifying the effect.
that as long as China has a overwhelming military force over taiwan, us taiwanese can't be independent? That's just ridiculous....
Right, like Kurdish Iraq was independent because Saddam couldn't regulate the daily activities of the people there with the no-fly zone in place. Why you have some practical, day-to-day indpendence you are nevertheless not truly independent. The practical test of this independence is being able to actually say that you are independent. But that overwhelming military force...
if it wasn't for chinese's military,economic strength I would imagine US and the rest of the world would easily recognizing our independence...
Oh, absolutely. But in reality China does have the military and economic strength.
sadly our world is filled with countries that kiss up to the inhumane communist nation cuz of their economic power.
I agree. It's truly sad watching CEOs and politicians slip in each others' spooge puddles in their ejaculatory rush to suck on the teats of China's growing economy.
So you're saying that if I were to express an unpopular opinion, it's all right if I'm physically attacked?
No. He never said it was okay that you would be physically attacked; you made that up so check yourself before saying "grow up".
What he's saying is that if you, as an American, express your ignorant and unwelcome opinion about Northern Ireland in a pub in London you should expect to get your ass handed to you. He's not justifying anything; he's explaining why the grandparent got the reactions he did.
It's not right that I may be beaten to a pulp when walking down south central LA while screaming racial epithets, but you would hardly be surprised, would you?
Taiwan really *is* an independent country, whether the People's Republic of China likes it or not. These are the realities people: stop sticking your heads in the sand.
As soon as Taiwan's President can say that without being attacked by the mainland, you'll be right.
Yup. And a poor person in another country would NEVER want to improve their education by installing a compiler in order to learn C++ or Java.
While I appreciate the design spec that said they wanted a zero-maintenance computer, I still feel this is a minor tragedy. The only reason I'm sitting here hacking while reading/. is that I had a computer I could put a compiler on. If I had only been able to run the applications that came with it, I'd probably be doing something completely different... I dunno... maybe outside.
Oh well. If the only way this will be palatable to the ISPs or whoever are going to be selling these things is to have them locked down, I guess that's better than no internet. But it seems like they're only getting half of what they should -- they're getting the consumer internet-user half, but not the creative, producer half.
any time you reduce a large file to a fingerprint you will inevitably run into problems like this because it is impossible to represent one-to-one every individual possible combination of a large set of data in smaller sets ("fingerprints").
True, it's impossible to have a hash without collisions. However it should be difficult (in a crypto computational complexity sense) to find such collisions. Apparently MD5 has a vulnerability where it is possible to compute in reasonable time sets of bits that can be swapped for each other in a file without changing the hash. That is definitely a weakness in the MD5 algorithm that is not inherent to hashing in general.
The benefit to people trying to spread malware would be that they could create software that wasn't malware, then swap it with real malware while keeping the same MD5, using established trust against the victims. Not terribly likely, though, which is why not many people are going nuts over this.
Spying involves monitoring someone without their knowledge.
If you think the camera is only used when gunshots are fired, but it isn't, then that's without your knowledge. If I tell you my camcorder is off, but really I've just disabled the power led, then I'm spying on you.
I suppose you're also opposed to cameras that monitor traffic and catch people running red lights?
God damn right I am.
Banks and other security conscious companies have cameras that are routinely monitoring the public around their premises. If you're truly worried about being discretely spied on by cameras, you're a few decades behind the times.
I'm worried about ubiquitous spying by the government, but yes I'm still behind the times. Banks don't bother me; I prefer to shop in stores without cameras, but regardless you're talking about private buildings. As opposed to my government, my democratic government.
So efficiently monitoring public areas with a remote camera is bad, but monitoring public areas by having an officer put themselves in harms way by constantly patrolling dangerous city streets is good?
YES. Officers walking around on foot is how we used to keep our cities safe, and if we did more of that instead of relying on technology to catch people after the fact our cities would be safer. A camera can't do anything but finger the guy who shot you; and don't talk to me about deterrence when an armed officer would be vastly more effective as a deterrent.
And what is this about putting themselves in harms way? For one thing they're cops and that's their job, and for another this isn't Iraq! Where in America is it so dangerous that a cop just walking around is in danger? Where is it too unsafe to send the very people who are supposed to provide safety, and in that case who are you going to send?
You have no right to privacy in public places. Is that really such a difficult concept?
It's not difficult, it's wrong. You do have an expectation of privacy in public, that expectation is merely different than when in your home.
Well, it would be if it weren't for a silly thing called Federal law.
Oh, well, I guess since there's a law against Echelon and Carnivore (then what are they still doing here, then?) they're bad but if there's no law against cameras they're good.
The government can't just "listen in" unless they have a warrant.
But why not, beyond the obvious legal answer? The EM radiation emnating from the wires your email is moving down go through public places; why can't they just set up an antenna and pick them up, and why is this different than a camera?
Overall, I suppose I just don't understand your fear of being watched in public. A society that's not allowed to even look at each other in public areas is far more disturbing than any Orwellean nightmare I could envision.
If you can't distinguish between not wanting people to look at each other in public and not wanting the government to be watching the people constantly I can see why you wouldn't understand.
Fortunately enough people do understand that it's still not possible for them to announce that ubiquitous monitoring is now the answer. Instead they have to sneak in cameras for supposedly specific purposes like red lights or gunshots to get the people used to having cameras on them all the time slowly. Unfortunately it's working -- case in point right here.
A video camera in plain view on a pole is not very stealthy.
If the system is presented as being used to identify people firing guns, but in reality is used however the police want, then that is in fact clandestine. Same as if I tell you that my camcorder is off, but really I've just disabled the power led.
Ummm, they already do. That is much more a breach of privacy than some cameras setup in public spaces to track down shooters.
Yeah, I know they do. Can't I be pissed about both things?
By the way, you've once again intimated that the cameras will be used to track down shooters, implying they won't be used for anything else. How do you know, and if you're wrong and they're watching you, then wouldn't that be spying? Eh?
I guess. I was about 12 years old when it came out, and while I was pretty excited to get the SMB3 (best mario ever) sneak-peak, I wasn't very impressed by the movie. It was so random and so obviously a marketing creation even to a twelve year old -- the power glove? Besides, I was a kid -- I already spent all my time playing video games, what care did I have about making money while doing it? That didn't become a fantasy until the spectre of The Real World loomed its head later in life.:)
I can appreciate the dissapointment of sporting a stiff joystick -- while the solidity might bring anticipation of a responsize experience, the inability to make small adjustments will dampen your spirits quickly. I recommend adding some lubricant, or if you can open it up and see if there's a mechanism that's too tight. When my joystick was too stiff, I found a tight screw was the perfect answer to my problem.
Heh. Yeah, that's one think I like about the last couple Zeldas: Zelda isn't helpless. Okay, in Ocarina she was only not helpless when she was disguised, but in Wind Waker she was a badass.
Before I thought about any of the ramifications of this, I thought to myself "I think war games are about to get really, really cool."
Now about the ramifications... I'm starting to think that it's only a matter of time before some mad genius combines one of these with the robotic toilet and mankind is doomed.
These people are in public areas, presumably. No spying would be involved.
Okay, what do you call surreptitiously observing peoples activities, then? Video taping an unaware couple making out in a park isn't spying? Yes, it is a public place and therefore I could be being watched at any time. That does not mean it is acceptable to me to actually be watched all the time. If you disagree, then why don't you just stick a transmitter on yourself whenever you leave the house so the government can track you at all times -- but only when you're in public! That makes it okay!
a computer system defined specifically to look for ILLEGAL ACTIONS, and the system has proven to be ACCURATE.
And what is this system doing for all the time that there aren't any gunshots going off? The "system" may be for detecting gun shots, but it's still a moveable camera and a microphone. So they blanket a few neighborhoods with these -- are the LAPD going to be happy with just passively waiting for the system to identify gunshots, or are they going to want to expand what they can do with their new camera/microphone network? Hint: Only one answer is consistent with the history of law enforcement.
In the article, you should postpend every statement on what the system doesn't do with "... yet." Tracking limited amounts of speech, certain "alarm signal" words, wouldn't be a huge addition to the system and with microphones everywhere... think an Echelon or Carnivore for meatspace. But now that I think about it, my emails and phone calls travel on wires over public property, so I guess it's no big deal if the government listens in on that either.
The question is not whether unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works is illegal. The question is whether Kazaa, because it is often used as a vector for said distribution, is illegal. Which is the same question as whether VHS being used to make illegal copies makes VHS illegal, or if playing copyrighted songs over the phone makes your phone illegal, or if bashing someone's head in with a crowbar makes crowbars illegal: NO, because some thing being used for an illegal purpose does not make that thing illegal in all other cases.
You're saying that unauthorized copying is illegal, which nobody disagrees with because it's what the law says. What the ??AA is doing is extending that to say that therefore having the capacity to make unauthorized copies is also illegal. This is crazy-stupid, but it gets play time because the ??AA has the $$$$.
Google is definitely complicit, because by removing results that link to forbidden pages they remove the summary and also the knowledge that the result existed at all. Particularly in the context of Google News, this is obviously participating in censorship. It's like hiding the list of forbidden books so no one can even know their names.
Open source is nice, but doesn't prove anything because you can't be sure the machine is running the code you're looking at. The paper trail is absolutely not a red herring, because the point is you should never trust the machine to count your vote correctly.
Making a voting machine that is as trustworthy as anything is very, very simple:
1) The voter makes their choices with whatever interface you like. 2) When done, the machine prints a ballot that is both human and machine readable[1] and the voter visually verifies that the ballot is correct. 3) The voter places the ballot in a secure box to be counted later[2]. Bam! You're done.
This is simple. The interface and printer driver are the only complicated parts. Open source would be nice to help ensure there are no problems, but regardless if there are any the voter should be able to see them when they look at their ballot.
You can still have a lot of traditional problems like multiple voters, invalid registrations, the dead rising from their graves to vote, etc. You can still have the box of votes/voting machine stolen and tampered with. But you have to deal with these factors regardless.
The advantage of the electronic machine is that it should make it impossible for a voter to produce a ballot that won't be counted because of under/over votes.
[1] The human readable part and the machine readable part need to be the same part, i.e. a computer-scannable font. A bar-code doesn't cut it, because the voter won't know if the bar code represents their vote. [2] Or they stick it back in the machine which scans it right there so you can have your fast, early count. The point is that any machine or human should be able to verify the vote if there is any question, you are not dependent on this one black box. The vote counting machine can be separate; you could have each party bring their own favorite counting machine, and if they disagree do it by hand.
How does that combat against strong arming and buying votes. If a battered wife wants to vote for a new elective that is going to help her get away form her husband what is to stop the husband form watching over her shoulder and make sure she votes for who he wants her to?
Whats to stop someone saying bring your ballots here and we will give you $10 to vote for candidate x?
The exact same thing that stops this from happening now: Anonymous and private voting. You don't keep the paper receipt, you put it in a box/scan it back in the machine and leave it there! Nobody -- the guy with $10, or your abusive husband -- can prove who you voted for.
Whats to stop a postal service worker from intercepting thousands of votes changing them and continuing them on to the counting location?
Good question. This is the same problem we have today.
Does it matter which? The head of Diebold Election Systems is Bob Urosevich, who co-founded AIS with his brother, Todd Urosevich. AIS became ES&S after a merger, and Todd Urosevich is still CEO of that company. Not only does ES&S suffer from demonstrated failures, it has the same if not more partisan ties as Diebold.
Diebold and ES&S are just two halves of the same rotten fruit. Frankly I don't give a crap which corrupt corporation snarked votes or even if those votes were enough to change the election. We must get to the bottom of this like we should for all election fraud.
Yeah, there was nothing as painful as watching Clark get torn down. For once someone had the balls to stand before Congress and tell it like it was -- including his own failures -- followed by nothing but low blows from the administration until enough people could convince themselves not to pay attention to a true patriot telling them the truth.
You're absolutely right. The prowess of our military is meaningless when their actions are self-defeating. Shooting themselves in the foot with high precision, just as ordered.
Slashdot Mirror
Which, I'd like to add, is basically the only spam I ever get. That, and "your email (that you never sent) was spam filtered/contained a virus" spam. You'd think people setting up these filters would know that the return address is never valid, but I've heard it suggested that those "we filtered your email" messages are a form of advertising.
Nothing like multiplying a problem to make it go away! Morons...
I hate how all you stupid fucks automatically declare all opinions of Americans as ignorant.
Know what I hate? When someone (American or otherwise) is shown to be ignorant, and yet still takes up the pissy self-righteous I-have-a-right-to-my-hairbrained-opinion attitude you've got.
But I love how someone pointing out that ignorance is not a point of view means they must not be American. Yeah, I bet non-Americans think the same thing.
I'd say that his statement wasn't ignorant, but that the actions of the British fucktards who jumped him were. The British should get the fuck out of Ireland and Scottland, just like the US should feed the Jews to the arabs
Case in point. He admitted that what he said was ignorant. He had no idea why the Brits -- even his friends -- reacted in the way they did, and only after some Google searching did he begin to understand. He probably had little to no clue about U.S. involvement in the situation. So when you say he wasn't ignorant, you're wrong. He at least expressed some humility about it; you're showing the "typical American" igno-hubris that has become our stereotype. Thanks!
Though I'll agree that getting violent over it was pretty stupid. What do you expect in a bar, though? Don't we all know the rule about politics and religion (Ireland being both) in bars?
If you think I was too harsh, well, what can I say, thats what you get for expressing your ignorant and unwelcome opinion on Slashdot, which happens to be hosted in America... fuck face...
Speaking of ignorant, you know I'm sitting here in the U.S., right? Oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to assume you didn't know what you're talking about even though the words you type prove you don't. How un-American of me!
Yeah, that's what I read the first time. "... and therefore I think it's okay that you were beaten" is your own addition. Why don't you consider it to be an endorsement for his friends' mere eye rolling? Or why don't you consider it to be what it is: a statement about the emotion that underlies both reactions, shoving and eye-rolling.
I think this is a problem: people unable to differentiate between causes and justifications. Like discussing why insurgents are attacking us in Iraq, what their motivations are, without saying that the attacks are therefore good. Or saying that 9/11 was not some attack out of the blue in response to nothing, and yet still was an unjustifiable act of terrorism. This is the kind of nuance we need right now.
"There are rational reasons for this behavior" is not an endorsement of the behavior. Thinking otherwise is dangerous, because you're only recourse then is to consider any bad behaviors to be the result of insanity, with no cause that you can address. That's why the only thing we've come up with to address terrorism is: kill terrorists. That's all you've got, when there can be no underlying cause without justifying the effect.
that as long as China has a overwhelming military force over taiwan, us taiwanese can't be independent? That's just ridiculous....
Right, like Kurdish Iraq was independent because Saddam couldn't regulate the daily activities of the people there with the no-fly zone in place. Why you have some practical, day-to-day indpendence you are nevertheless not truly independent. The practical test of this independence is being able to actually say that you are independent. But that overwhelming military force...
if it wasn't for chinese's military,economic strength I would imagine US and the rest of the world would easily recognizing our independence...
Oh, absolutely. But in reality China does have the military and economic strength.
sadly our world is filled with countries that kiss up to the inhumane communist nation cuz of their economic power.
I agree. It's truly sad watching CEOs and politicians slip in each others' spooge puddles in their ejaculatory rush to suck on the teats of China's growing economy.
So you're saying that if I were to express an unpopular opinion, it's all right if I'm physically attacked?
No. He never said it was okay that you would be physically attacked; you made that up so check yourself before saying "grow up".
What he's saying is that if you, as an American, express your ignorant and unwelcome opinion about Northern Ireland in a pub in London you should expect to get your ass handed to you. He's not justifying anything; he's explaining why the grandparent got the reactions he did.
It's not right that I may be beaten to a pulp when walking down south central LA while screaming racial epithets, but you would hardly be surprised, would you?
Taiwan really *is* an independent country, whether the People's Republic of China likes it or not. These are the realities people: stop sticking your heads in the sand.
As soon as Taiwan's President can say that without being attacked by the mainland, you'll be right.
Yup. And a poor person in another country would NEVER want to improve their education by installing a compiler in order to learn C++ or Java.
/. is that I had a computer I could put a compiler on. If I had only been able to run the applications that came with it, I'd probably be doing something completely different... I dunno... maybe outside.
While I appreciate the design spec that said they wanted a zero-maintenance computer, I still feel this is a minor tragedy. The only reason I'm sitting here hacking while reading
Oh well. If the only way this will be palatable to the ISPs or whoever are going to be selling these things is to have them locked down, I guess that's better than no internet. But it seems like they're only getting half of what they should -- they're getting the consumer internet-user half, but not the creative, producer half.
any time you reduce a large file to a fingerprint you will inevitably run into problems like this because it is impossible to represent one-to-one every individual possible combination of a large set of data in smaller sets ("fingerprints").
True, it's impossible to have a hash without collisions. However it should be difficult (in a crypto computational complexity sense) to find such collisions. Apparently MD5 has a vulnerability where it is possible to compute in reasonable time sets of bits that can be swapped for each other in a file without changing the hash. That is definitely a weakness in the MD5 algorithm that is not inherent to hashing in general.
The benefit to people trying to spread malware would be that they could create software that wasn't malware, then swap it with real malware while keeping the same MD5, using established trust against the victims. Not terribly likely, though, which is why not many people are going nuts over this.
That wasn't even intelligible.
To you. Glad to know what I'm dealing with.
Spying involves monitoring someone without their knowledge.
If you think the camera is only used when gunshots are fired, but it isn't, then that's without your knowledge. If I tell you my camcorder is off, but really I've just disabled the power led, then I'm spying on you.
I suppose you're also opposed to cameras that monitor traffic and catch people running red lights?
God damn right I am.
Banks and other security conscious companies have cameras that are routinely monitoring the public around their premises. If you're truly worried about being discretely spied on by cameras, you're a few decades behind the times.
I'm worried about ubiquitous spying by the government, but yes I'm still behind the times. Banks don't bother me; I prefer to shop in stores without cameras, but regardless you're talking about private buildings. As opposed to my government, my democratic government.
So efficiently monitoring public areas with a remote camera is bad, but monitoring public areas by having an officer put themselves in harms way by constantly patrolling dangerous city streets is good?
YES. Officers walking around on foot is how we used to keep our cities safe, and if we did more of that instead of relying on technology to catch people after the fact our cities would be safer. A camera can't do anything but finger the guy who shot you; and don't talk to me about deterrence when an armed officer would be vastly more effective as a deterrent.
And what is this about putting themselves in harms way? For one thing they're cops and that's their job, and for another this isn't Iraq! Where in America is it so dangerous that a cop just walking around is in danger? Where is it too unsafe to send the very people who are supposed to provide safety, and in that case who are you going to send?
You have no right to privacy in public places. Is that really such a difficult concept?
It's not difficult, it's wrong. You do have an expectation of privacy in public, that expectation is merely different than when in your home.
Well, it would be if it weren't for a silly thing called Federal law.
Oh, well, I guess since there's a law against Echelon and Carnivore (then what are they still doing here, then?) they're bad but if there's no law against cameras they're good.
The government can't just "listen in" unless they have a warrant.
But why not, beyond the obvious legal answer? The EM radiation emnating from the wires your email is moving down go through public places; why can't they just set up an antenna and pick them up, and why is this different than a camera?
Overall, I suppose I just don't understand your fear of being watched in public. A society that's not allowed to even look at each other in public areas is far more disturbing than any Orwellean nightmare I could envision.
If you can't distinguish between not wanting people to look at each other in public and not wanting the government to be watching the people constantly I can see why you wouldn't understand.
Fortunately enough people do understand that it's still not possible for them to announce that ubiquitous monitoring is now the answer. Instead they have to sneak in cameras for supposedly specific purposes like red lights or gunshots to get the people used to having cameras on them all the time slowly. Unfortunately it's working -- case in point right here.
A video camera in plain view on a pole is not very stealthy.
If the system is presented as being used to identify people firing guns, but in reality is used however the police want, then that is in fact clandestine. Same as if I tell you that my camcorder is off, but really I've just disabled the power led.
Ummm, they already do. That is much more a breach of privacy than some cameras setup in public spaces to track down shooters.
Yeah, I know they do. Can't I be pissed about both things?
By the way, you've once again intimated that the cameras will be used to track down shooters, implying they won't be used for anything else. How do you know, and if you're wrong and they're watching you, then wouldn't that be spying? Eh?
And if our "goal" was to warmonger in Iraq, wouldn't we "make it look like" Iraq did it, instead of Osama bin Laden?
;)
Maybe not, if the conspirators in question didn't know the difference between Afghanistan and Iraq.
I guess. I was about 12 years old when it came out, and while I was pretty excited to get the SMB3 (best mario ever) sneak-peak, I wasn't very impressed by the movie. It was so random and so obviously a marketing creation even to a twelve year old -- the power glove? Besides, I was a kid -- I already spent all my time playing video games, what care did I have about making money while doing it? That didn't become a fantasy until the spectre of The Real World loomed its head later in life. :)
I can appreciate the dissapointment of sporting a stiff joystick -- while the solidity might bring anticipation of a responsize experience, the inability to make small adjustments will dampen your spirits quickly. I recommend adding some lubricant, or if you can open it up and see if there's a mechanism that's too tight. When my joystick was too stiff, I found a tight screw was the perfect answer to my problem.
Heh. Yeah, that's one think I like about the last couple Zeldas: Zelda isn't helpless. Okay, in Ocarina she was only not helpless when she was disguised, but in Wind Waker she was a badass.
Just call it "Very Pleasant Euthanasia" and bill it as a feature.
I somehow doubt moving to the receiving end of a can of robot army asswhup would improve the slope of the progress curve. Heh.
Before I thought about any of the ramifications of this, I thought to myself "I think war games are about to get really, really cool."
Now about the ramifications... I'm starting to think that it's only a matter of time before some mad genius combines one of these with the robotic toilet and mankind is doomed.
These people are in public areas, presumably. No spying would be involved.
Okay, what do you call surreptitiously observing peoples activities, then? Video taping an unaware couple making out in a park isn't spying? Yes, it is a public place and therefore I could be being watched at any time. That does not mean it is acceptable to me to actually be watched all the time. If you disagree, then why don't you just stick a transmitter on yourself whenever you leave the house so the government can track you at all times -- but only when you're in public! That makes it okay!
a computer system defined specifically to look for ILLEGAL ACTIONS, and the system has proven to be ACCURATE.
And what is this system doing for all the time that there aren't any gunshots going off? The "system" may be for detecting gun shots, but it's still a moveable camera and a microphone. So they blanket a few neighborhoods with these -- are the LAPD going to be happy with just passively waiting for the system to identify gunshots, or are they going to want to expand what they can do with their new camera/microphone network? Hint: Only one answer is consistent with the history of law enforcement.
In the article, you should postpend every statement on what the system doesn't do with "... yet." Tracking limited amounts of speech, certain "alarm signal" words, wouldn't be a huge addition to the system and with microphones everywhere... think an Echelon or Carnivore for meatspace. But now that I think about it, my emails and phone calls travel on wires over public property, so I guess it's no big deal if the government listens in on that either.
The question is not whether unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works is illegal. The question is whether Kazaa, because it is often used as a vector for said distribution, is illegal. Which is the same question as whether VHS being used to make illegal copies makes VHS illegal, or if playing copyrighted songs over the phone makes your phone illegal, or if bashing someone's head in with a crowbar makes crowbars illegal: NO, because some thing being used for an illegal purpose does not make that thing illegal in all other cases.
You're saying that unauthorized copying is illegal, which nobody disagrees with because it's what the law says. What the ??AA is doing is extending that to say that therefore having the capacity to make unauthorized copies is also illegal. This is crazy-stupid, but it gets play time because the ??AA has the $$$$.
Google is definitely complicit, because by removing results that link to forbidden pages they remove the summary and also the knowledge that the result existed at all. Particularly in the context of Google News, this is obviously participating in censorship. It's like hiding the list of forbidden books so no one can even know their names.
Open source is nice, but doesn't prove anything because you can't be sure the machine is running the code you're looking at. The paper trail is absolutely not a red herring, because the point is you should never trust the machine to count your vote correctly.
Making a voting machine that is as trustworthy as anything is very, very simple:
1) The voter makes their choices with whatever interface you like.
2) When done, the machine prints a ballot that is both human and machine readable[1] and the voter visually verifies that the ballot is correct.
3) The voter places the ballot in a secure box to be counted later[2]. Bam! You're done.
This is simple. The interface and printer driver are the only complicated parts. Open source would be nice to help ensure there are no problems, but regardless if there are any the voter should be able to see them when they look at their ballot.
You can still have a lot of traditional problems like multiple voters, invalid registrations, the dead rising from their graves to vote, etc. You can still have the box of votes/voting machine stolen and tampered with. But you have to deal with these factors regardless.
The advantage of the electronic machine is that it should make it impossible for a voter to produce a ballot that won't be counted because of under/over votes.
[1] The human readable part and the machine readable part need to be the same part, i.e. a computer-scannable font. A bar-code doesn't cut it, because the voter won't know if the bar code represents their vote.
[2] Or they stick it back in the machine which scans it right there so you can have your fast, early count. The point is that any machine or human should be able to verify the vote if there is any question, you are not dependent on this one black box. The vote counting machine can be separate; you could have each party bring their own favorite counting machine, and if they disagree do it by hand.
How does that combat against strong arming and buying votes. If a battered wife wants to vote for a new elective that is going to help her get away form her husband what is to stop the husband form watching over her shoulder and make sure she votes for who he wants her to?
Whats to stop someone saying bring your ballots here and we will give you $10 to vote for candidate x?
The exact same thing that stops this from happening now: Anonymous and private voting. You don't keep the paper receipt, you put it in a box/scan it back in the machine and leave it there! Nobody -- the guy with $10, or your abusive husband -- can prove who you voted for.
Whats to stop a postal service worker from intercepting thousands of votes changing them and continuing them on to the counting location?
Good question. This is the same problem we have today.
Does it matter which? The head of Diebold Election Systems is Bob Urosevich, who co-founded AIS with his brother, Todd Urosevich. AIS became ES&S after a merger, and Todd Urosevich is still CEO of that company. Not only does ES&S suffer from demonstrated failures, it has the same if not more partisan ties as Diebold.
Diebold and ES&S are just two halves of the same rotten fruit. Frankly I don't give a crap which corrupt corporation snarked votes or even if those votes were enough to change the election. We must get to the bottom of this like we should for all election fraud.
Yeah, there was nothing as painful as watching Clark get torn down. For once someone had the balls to stand before Congress and tell it like it was -- including his own failures -- followed by nothing but low blows from the administration until enough people could convince themselves not to pay attention to a true patriot telling them the truth.
You're absolutely right. The prowess of our military is meaningless when their actions are self-defeating. Shooting themselves in the foot with high precision, just as ordered.