I agree with you in general that the risk of any individual contracting BSE is low, but your "quotes" from the USDA are not correct or are incomplete. Because these days the USDA's primary concern is protecting the multi-billion dollar US beef industry (contrary to protecting the food supply - their stated primary concern), it is necessary to look more closely at their statements:
"all the organs in which infectious prions occur were removed at slaughter and did not enter the food supply." This is true, however the equipment and tools used to seperate the components often cross-contaminate the non-nervous system tissue with the other parts. Previous inspections have shown this to be frequently the case in slaughterhouses. Inspections in other slaughterhouses have found CNS (central nervous system) tissue has been mixed with food-grade ground meat.
"Muscle meat is not a source of infectious prions...." What they actually said was "muscle meat has not been shown to be a source of...". This really means they don't really know if it does or not, just that there is no evidence that it does. Since human studies are difficult to do in cases of fatal diseases, that is not really much of a reassurance. Also left out was that blood IS a carrier of the prions - and every piece of beef I have ever bought has had blood in it.
"None of this material left the control of the companies and entered commercial distribution." You don't mean the beef here surely, since it DID get out into the food supply. I don't know about the CNS parts, but knowing the way the USDA has spun things I would ask if that means it didn't leave the plant or it just got made into chicken feed.
But you left out a big spin-doctored statement by the USDA - "It is only one cow." How much more misleading could the USDA be than to say that when they should have said we have only "found" one cow? It appears now, weeks later, that the cases are very few and may be only that one cow, but even today we still don't know the extent of the outbreak - and the USDA certainly did not know it the day it was discovered.
My point is that many people do not look ctitically at statements that are made from industry or the government. Look at who has the most money to make or who has a strong vested interest in the outcome and ratchet up you skepticism appropriately when they make self-serving press releases.
Finally, I disagree with your implication that the supermarkets should have done their own research on the USDA web site and determined that there was no risk and that they did not need to contact anyone. I do not want a supermarket manager deciding what my risk is from eating contaminated products sold at his or her store. Their job is to sell food - not make risk-assessment decisions for me and my family.
He wasn't advocating shooting people who have bolts and tattoos - he merely said they were rebellious, didn't seem to be health oriented, and would not likely support social programs when they were older. Big deal.
I happen to think he is wrong - each generation is rebellious in its own way and has to do something that sets it apart and seems outrageous to the previous one, but it passes. They settle down and become prety much like every other generation.
Your rants, name calling and personal insults, however, are totally out of line.
What you are calling "science" is really science reporting. Science reporting summarizes the real science and leaves out the qualifiers and statistical information from the original published peer-reviewed work. Science reporting frequently offers broad and sweeping conclusions of hard fact from original work that only reports on evidence that such a conclusion may be true. Even science textbooks are basically summaries of the original research and omit the nuances. Science reporting is a hollow shell of real science.
To understand what the scientists are really saying you have to go read and understand the original articles.
Here is a big news flash - Human Resources departments are NOT there to protect the employees. This is probably the biggest misconception among employees today, and one that the companies like to perpetuate because it keeps employees from getting independent help or advice. In reality, HR departments are there to protect the company and the company's management. HR departments are the company's advocate, not the employee's advocate although they will pretend they are.
The only person you can trust to be on your side in an employee/company issue is an attorney you hired yourself (or your union if that applies).
Here is some free advice from MY attorney that I pass on to people thinking of using an Open Door Policy:
Company Policies are NOT legal contracts. The company has NO legal obligation to follow their own policies, the employee has NO legal recourse if a company decides to not follow their policies when inconvenient. The only policies that are legally enforceable are those that mirror existing law. There are no Open Door laws except to prohibit retaliation for whistle-blowers reporting violations of Federal law (and perhaps some state laws).
Unfortunately I learned this after it was too late. Maybe some others can benefit from it in advance if they read it here.
I can't second your post too strongly. I've been there too. You have to keep your mouth shut, say only what you are expected to say and nothing more. Never speak up and say what you really think when asked, particularly when they tell you to be frank.
No good will ever come to dicey and his colleagues from speaking up at that dinner "meeting". Sounds to me like they are being set up. If management really wanted to know what people thought they would ask each in private, and even then the smart ones would keep silent.
The right thing is to complain to the right person and risk the retiliation that might happen. Band together, if everyone complains, they can't fire you all right?
Why is that the right thing? You and others will be forced out or fired, and for what? Nothing will be changed in the end anyway. The way to do it is to work with your own management to try and find a solution. If your ideas get shot down wait six months and try again. It's the only way. It isn't instantaneous, it takes a lot of work, and it is not guaranteed to work, but it beats being on the street looking for work.
Never, never go above your management to talk about problems if you value your job. Be aware that even though your company's "Open Door Policy" (by whatever name) may purport to protect you if you do, the policy is really there to protect the company - NOT employees. If things go wrong they can point to the policy and blame you for not coming forward. The company may not be able to fire you for going to upper management, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. When the retaliation starts the company will defend itself to the utmost because to admit that there was a violation of policy would open them to a lawsuit by you. Don't look for the upper management to protect you - they will never sacrifice a manager for a worker because it is easier to replace workers than managers.
I speak from experience here. Do not take what is right or efficient or smarter in your job to heart and make it so important that you feel you need to go to upper management. Do not make it a personal issue. Do not make it a moral issue. Do not think you will be rewarded for doing so - that only happens in movies. Your managers will defend themselves every way they can, and that will include finding a way to get rid of you.
Here are two rules you should NEVER violate that you can have free of charge from me:
1) When managment announces that they want open feedback in a meeting and that nothing said will have any repercussions, watch out! That is the time to keep your mouth shut!
2) Never take your job so seriously that you forget your own welfare. If you are perceived by your local management to have stabbed them in the back they WILL get even...and they have the power to do it.
This is no troll and I speak from experience and as a victim of a so-called Open Door Policy. If you criticize your manaement you will be punished...and if you object to the punishment you will be forced out of your job.
From your original post, this is the best advice you could have right now.
I remember this same argument in the early days of the Web when there was the big "non-commercialization" feeling. Then too, some people said "just don;t go to sites that have any ads - the companies will get the message." Baloney. This is like visiting a brick and morter store and learning that you've agreed to accept collect-call telephone solicitations just by walking in.
I agree. Google results are becoming more and more irrelevant, with the first page of hits being taken up by a few major eCommerce organizations. This is mostly the result of abuse by a few companies working the Google algorithms since most of the ads are really for the same service, just using different web pages linked to each other. There must be a term for this but I don't know it.
I am very tired of clicking link after link that purport to have reviews of what I am looking for only to discover it has nothing of the sort and is just another version of Amazon, Nextag, OneCall or Yahoo or with exactly the same information. It particularly irks me to be tricked to a site that that claims a "Review of Acme Rocket Launcher" that just says, "Sorry there are no reviews of Acme Rocket Launcher submit your review here, but get best price for Acme Rocket Launcher here."
No, Google doesn't do everything perfectly by a long shot.
Am I what? Are you sure you replied to the correct post? I am pointing out that people who have little power today should be treated with respect even if for no other reason than they may not be powerless in the future. The thread was leaning toward there being no negative repurcussions if powerless people (i.e. Ethiopian's) were treated badly because there was nothing they could do about it anyway. I pointed out that this was an attitude shared by many powerful past cultures that learned a hard lesson that the change from powerless to powerful is often unexpected, dramatic, and from the dominant culture's viewpoint - devestating.
Seems implausible I know, but so did the Colonies winning their war of independence seem implausible to the British, and even more so the economic strength the Arabs have today when up until the 1940's they were a powerless semi-nomadic people. The Czars couldn't even comprehend a revolution. The Ottoman Empire, one of the great civiizations of the ages fell to some barbarians on horseback.
Those unforseen future consequences of today's actions have a nasty habit of coming to roost with a vengence.
The US food industry is largely based on producing and selling high fat, high sugar, high profit foods. If the government supported the WHO report (that BTW reaches conclusions most people would call common sense - such as more fruit and vegetables, less fat and sugar) the Bush administration would actually be suggesting (gasp) profit-reducing changes in the food industry. That those changes would benefit all Americans makes no difference since it would not benefit the U.S. food industry executives.
The Bush administration's calling of the WHO report "bad science" is just another example of using spin and obsfucation to support their "profit at all costs" agenda.
Ninety-nine percent the posts on this topic deal with brute force methods to analyze every single image file to detect the steg, but there are easier, more creative ways to do it. Here is an example:
Detecting outgoing steg messages from an AF base seems almost trivial to me. Since all incoming web traffic passes through AF servers, they can simply cache every single incoming image as a baseline. If any of these images are altered with a steg message it will be different from the original image when it goes out. Photography is strictly controlled on AF bases, so a spy would find it difficult to create and send many unique images without raising a red flag. Also, unique outgoing images would in themselves be cause for further analysis.
Detecting steg massages in incoming messages would be more difficult, but could be handled in a similar way by compiling a baseline of qazillions of current images available on the net. To say this is a big job is an understatement, but the government has the resources to do it. The big savings is that these images do not have to be analyzed for steg - they are simply the baseline. Incoming images that match existing public images could pass freely, while changed images would get more detailed analysis. This would weed out the vast majority of images, making more thorough analysis of the rest a do-able task.
This might not actually work - after all I've only been thinking about it for 10 minutes - but it does indicate that there are potential solutions to this problem that do not involve conducting super computer statistical analysis on every single image file on the net.
There is no possibility to tell one set of random data from another set of random data.
This is tue, but the message data, by definition, cannot be truly random. It must have some sort of logical order for it to be decrypted by the intended recipient. Granted, that pattern may be very difficult to detect, but that's the point of the AF contract?
Not clear at all. I've read three very creative approaches to solving this problem in the last ten minutes and thought of another approach myself. It may not be easy to do, but don't make the mistake that just because you (or I) can't see a way to do it that it can't be done.
The Germans thought their Inigma code was unbreakable during WWII but the Brits cracked it. Closer to the present, everyone thought cracking 128-bit encryption was impossible - for an entire year.
Rather than some obscure marketing ploy is is most likely that the high end cards require perfect chips to work reliably. nvidia has to guarantee their cards work, and have to replace them when they don't, so it is likely the high end cards have had a lot more testing done to find the reliable chipsets. If only 5% of the chipsets work in the high end card that is a lot of testing required to identify that 5%. In addition the failure rate of the finished cards (even using the top 5% of chips) is also likely to be higher resulting in a lot of expensive finished cards that end up in the crusher.
Its simply that cards certified to work at the limit of thier capability are more expensive to make, while cards with exactly the same components certified to work at a less demanding speeds are cheaper to make.
I agree. I just had a thought about crime and punishment... All those little punishments Adrian clearly didn't get from his parents for 22 years are now being handed out in one big heavy-duty lump. Unfortunately for Adrian it's being handed out by the Feds and involves jail time. Federal prison - in loco parentis".
It's time that people like this stop thinking the whole goddam world is here just to satisfy their personal "curiosity". To be perfectly blunt, you can take your Adrian Lamo Defense Fund and cram it up your ass. I want to see this guy do the maximum stretch as a lesson to other "curious" fellows.
I agree with you except for one point. I don't think he should get the maximum sentence, which could be up to 20 years. Jail time yes, but maximum no. I suspect the FBI and the NYTimes are in fact going very easy on him contrary to the moaning going on here. Their carefully worded statement of damages ("more than $5,000") allows the judge great latitude in sentencing. If they had stated true damages Mr. Lamo would be facing REAL prison time since stealing more than $100,000 involves major prison time. Since this was a Federal crime, strict sentencing guidelines often leave judges no leeway in being lenient.
I also suspect that the FBI has taught Mr. Lamo a valuable lesson about the real world that his parents never got around to - "No one really believes all that crap you spout, Adrian."
I've read some of the things he's written and some interviews with him. He is an astonishingly bright and articulate man for his age in America. He doesn't talk like a punk or a hacker, knows exactly what he's doing and why and can elucidate it. I've not noted any tendency to bragadocio.
I, too, have heard him talk about his expliots, and I had a completely different take on him. I remember thinking "Who does this egotistical SOB think he is and how stupid does he think we are?" He rationlized his illegal and criminal behavior as some sort of do-gooder crusade when all he was really doing was having fun, enriching himself, and getting publicity to feed his ego. If he isn't a braggart what were those absurd TechTV interviews about? Oh, he SOUNDS humble on those interviews, but he is really quite a con man and self-promoter.
I certainly do not find him bright and articulate. I find his silly rationalizations of his behavior show a REMARKABLE lack of maturity for a person his age. He's 22 years old!? He acts like he's 12! "I wasn't stealing your money! I was just checking to see if I could get it out of your wallet to show you it wasn't safe! You believe that don't you? My Mommy and Daddy would believe me!"
However, giving him a little slack, maybe those are the real culprits here - his parents who didn't put a stop to his crap for 22 years. I suspect the FBI has done their job for them.
YOu are interpreting the crime incorrectly. He is not charged for using or accessing public information, he is charged for stealing access to a pay-for-use service and charging the cost to the New York Times. The information on LexisNexis is available from various sources and is (mostly) free to all, but LesixNexis goes to a lot of expense to gather all this information in one place, catalog it and make it readily available - FOR A FEE. In truth, the information would be almost impossilble for you or I to get otherwise. LexisNexis provides a valuable service - and that is the point - it is VALUABLE, was stolen by Lamo, and paid for by the NYT without their consent.
There is absolutely no difference than if Lamo had stolen $100,000 in cash from the Times and used the money to pay his LexisNexis bill.
Here's news for you: "In excess of $5,000" could mean $5,001 or $500,000. For all we know $5,000 is the legal break point for certain charges or punishments, hence the statement that the damages were in excess of that amount. FOR ALL WE KNOW, the government and the New York Times IS cutting him a great deal by stating the damages this way. Perhaps if the real damages were stated officially to the judge Lamo might fall under sentencing guidelines that would put him in prison for TWENTY years. At least this way Lamo has a chance.
One thing I do know is that 3,000 Lexis Nexis searches cost a heck of a lot more than $5,000.
OK, he's guilty, by plea.
What, is this some new legal principle? If you admit you did something you are somehow NOT guilty of doing it? He was caught red-handed. No way Lamo did not do the best thing for Lamo by pleading guilty. No sympathy from me on that point.
I've heard Lamo claim, after the fact, that he was only trying to help companies by breaking into their networks and stealing from them. Only a moron would expect anyone to believe that.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you in general that the risk of any individual contracting BSE is low, but your "quotes" from the USDA are not correct or are incomplete. Because these days the USDA's primary concern is protecting the multi-billion dollar US beef industry (contrary to protecting the food supply - their stated primary concern), it is necessary to look more closely at their statements:
"all the organs in which infectious prions occur were removed at slaughter and did not enter the food supply." This is true, however the equipment and tools used to seperate the components often cross-contaminate the non-nervous system tissue with the other parts. Previous inspections have shown this to be frequently the case in slaughterhouses. Inspections in other slaughterhouses have found CNS (central nervous system) tissue has been mixed with food-grade ground meat.
"Muscle meat is not a source of infectious prions...." What they actually said was "muscle meat has not been shown to be a source of...". This really means they don't really know if it does or not, just that there is no evidence that it does. Since human studies are difficult to do in cases of fatal diseases, that is not really much of a reassurance. Also left out was that blood IS a carrier of the prions - and every piece of beef I have ever bought has had blood in it.
"None of this material left the control of the companies and entered commercial distribution." You don't mean the beef here surely, since it DID get out into the food supply. I don't know about the CNS parts, but knowing the way the USDA has spun things I would ask if that means it didn't leave the plant or it just got made into chicken feed.
But you left out a big spin-doctored statement by the USDA - "It is only one cow." How much more misleading could the USDA be than to say that when they should have said we have only "found" one cow? It appears now, weeks later, that the cases are very few and may be only that one cow, but even today we still don't know the extent of the outbreak - and the USDA certainly did not know it the day it was discovered.
My point is that many people do not look ctitically at statements that are made from industry or the government. Look at who has the most money to make or who has a strong vested interest in the outcome and ratchet up you skepticism appropriately when they make self-serving press releases.
Finally, I disagree with your implication that the supermarkets should have done their own research on the USDA web site and determined that there was no risk and that they did not need to contact anyone. I do not want a supermarket manager deciding what my risk is from eating contaminated products sold at his or her store. Their job is to sell food - not make risk-assessment decisions for me and my family.
Sheesh! Get a grip!
He wasn't advocating shooting people who have bolts and tattoos - he merely said they were rebellious, didn't seem to be health oriented, and would not likely support social programs when they were older. Big deal.
I happen to think he is wrong - each generation is rebellious in its own way and has to do something that sets it apart and seems outrageous to the previous one, but it passes. They settle down and become prety much like every other generation.
Your rants, name calling and personal insults, however, are totally out of line.
What you are calling "science" is really science reporting. Science reporting summarizes the real science and leaves out the qualifiers and statistical information from the original published peer-reviewed work. Science reporting frequently offers broad and sweeping conclusions of hard fact from original work that only reports on evidence that such a conclusion may be true. Even science textbooks are basically summaries of the original research and omit the nuances. Science reporting is a hollow shell of real science.
To understand what the scientists are really saying you have to go read and understand the original articles.
Here is a big news flash - Human Resources departments are NOT there to protect the employees. This is probably the biggest misconception among employees today, and one that the companies like to perpetuate because it keeps employees from getting independent help or advice. In reality, HR departments are there to protect the company and the company's management. HR departments are the company's advocate, not the employee's advocate although they will pretend they are.
The only person you can trust to be on your side in an employee/company issue is an attorney you hired yourself (or your union if that applies).
Here is some free advice from MY attorney that I pass on to people thinking of using an Open Door Policy:
Company Policies are NOT legal contracts. The company has NO legal obligation to follow their own policies, the employee has NO legal recourse if a company decides to not follow their policies when inconvenient. The only policies that are legally enforceable are those that mirror existing law. There are no Open Door laws except to prohibit retaliation for whistle-blowers reporting violations of Federal law (and perhaps some state laws).
Unfortunately I learned this after it was too late. Maybe some others can benefit from it in advance if they read it here.
I can't second your post too strongly. I've been there too. You have to keep your mouth shut, say only what you are expected to say and nothing more. Never speak up and say what you really think when asked, particularly when they tell you to be frank.
No good will ever come to dicey and his colleagues from speaking up at that dinner "meeting". Sounds to me like they are being set up. If management really wanted to know what people thought they would ask each in private, and even then the smart ones would keep silent.
What can a person do?
Basically, nothing.
The right thing is to complain to the right person and risk the retiliation that might happen. Band together, if everyone complains, they can't fire you all right?
Why is that the right thing? You and others will be forced out or fired, and for what? Nothing will be changed in the end anyway. The way to do it is to work with your own management to try and find a solution. If your ideas get shot down wait six months and try again. It's the only way. It isn't instantaneous, it takes a lot of work, and it is not guaranteed to work, but it beats being on the street looking for work.
I was fired three weeks later, for some dumb bullshit that you wouldn't get fired for unless you pissed off your boss.
This is the way it works. It was more sublte in my case, but basically - This...is...the...way...it...works!
Dicey - PAY ATTENTION - want to keep your job? Then keep your mouth shut and smile, smile, smile.
In one way this post is correct - if you are bound and determined to commit career-suicide this is the way to plan it.
Just imagine how local management will feel about it if you prepare a careful presentation along the suggested lines. You will only succeed in:
1) Making them look incompetent
2) Making them look foolish
3) Make yourself their eternal enemy
4) Get yourself screwed
Don't look for protection from "upper management" - their loyalties lie first with themselves and secondly with their direct reports - NOT you.
Do what the post suggests, BUT GIVE IT TO LOCAL MANAGEMENT. If they don;t buy it then just accept that you can't effect the changes.
Never, never go above your management to talk about problems if you value your job. Be aware that even though your company's "Open Door Policy" (by whatever name) may purport to protect you if you do, the policy is really there to protect the company - NOT employees. If things go wrong they can point to the policy and blame you for not coming forward. The company may not be able to fire you for going to upper management, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. When the retaliation starts the company will defend itself to the utmost because to admit that there was a violation of policy would open them to a lawsuit by you. Don't look for the upper management to protect you - they will never sacrifice a manager for a worker because it is easier to replace workers than managers.
I speak from experience here. Do not take what is right or efficient or smarter in your job to heart and make it so important that you feel you need to go to upper management. Do not make it a personal issue. Do not make it a moral issue. Do not think you will be rewarded for doing so - that only happens in movies. Your managers will defend themselves every way they can, and that will include finding a way to get rid of you.
Here are two rules you should NEVER violate that you can have free of charge from me:
1) When managment announces that they want open feedback in a meeting and that nothing said will have any repercussions, watch out! That is the time to keep your mouth shut!
2) Never take your job so seriously that you forget your own welfare. If you are perceived by your local management to have stabbed them in the back they WILL get even...and they have the power to do it.
This is no troll and I speak from experience and as a victim of a so-called Open Door Policy. If you criticize your manaement you will be punished...and if you object to the punishment you will be forced out of your job.
From your original post, this is the best advice you could have right now.
I remember this same argument in the early days of the Web when there was the big "non-commercialization" feeling. Then too, some people said "just don;t go to sites that have any ads - the companies will get the message." Baloney. This is like visiting a brick and morter store and learning that you've agreed to accept collect-call telephone solicitations just by walking in.
I agree. Google results are becoming more and more irrelevant, with the first page of hits being taken up by a few major eCommerce organizations. This is mostly the result of abuse by a few companies working the Google algorithms since most of the ads are really for the same service, just using different web pages linked to each other. There must be a term for this but I don't know it.
I am very tired of clicking link after link that purport to have reviews of what I am looking for only to discover it has nothing of the sort and is just another version of Amazon, Nextag, OneCall or Yahoo or with exactly the same information. It particularly irks me to be tricked to a site that that claims a "Review of Acme Rocket Launcher" that just says, "Sorry there are no reviews of Acme Rocket Launcher submit your review here, but get best price for Acme Rocket Launcher here."
No, Google doesn't do everything perfectly by a long shot.
Am I what? Are you sure you replied to the correct post? I am pointing out that people who have little power today should be treated with respect even if for no other reason than they may not be powerless in the future. The thread was leaning toward there being no negative repurcussions if powerless people (i.e. Ethiopian's) were treated badly because there was nothing they could do about it anyway. I pointed out that this was an attitude shared by many powerful past cultures that learned a hard lesson that the change from powerless to powerful is often unexpected, dramatic, and from the dominant culture's viewpoint - devestating.
Seems implausible I know, but so did the Colonies winning their war of independence seem implausible to the British, and even more so the economic strength the Arabs have today when up until the 1940's they were a powerless semi-nomadic people. The Czars couldn't even comprehend a revolution. The Ottoman Empire, one of the great civiizations of the ages fell to some barbarians on horseback.
Those unforseen future consequences of today's actions have a nasty habit of coming to roost with a vengence.
Remind me not to bother calling an ambulance when you are lying in the road "not doing anything useful" after being hit by a bus.
The US food industry is largely based on producing and selling high fat, high sugar, high profit foods. If the government supported the WHO report (that BTW reaches conclusions most people would call common sense - such as more fruit and vegetables, less fat and sugar) the Bush administration would actually be suggesting (gasp) profit-reducing changes in the food industry. That those changes would benefit all Americans makes no difference since it would not benefit the U.S. food industry executives.
The Bush administration's calling of the WHO report "bad science" is just another example of using spin and obsfucation to support their "profit at all costs" agenda.
That's not paranoia - its simply the truth.
Ninety-nine percent the posts on this topic deal with brute force methods to analyze every single image file to detect the steg, but there are easier, more creative ways to do it. Here is an example:
Detecting outgoing steg messages from an AF base seems almost trivial to me. Since all incoming web traffic passes through AF servers, they can simply cache every single incoming image as a baseline. If any of these images are altered with a steg message it will be different from the original image when it goes out. Photography is strictly controlled on AF bases, so a spy would find it difficult to create and send many unique images without raising a red flag. Also, unique outgoing images would in themselves be cause for further analysis.
Detecting steg massages in incoming messages would be more difficult, but could be handled in a similar way by compiling a baseline of qazillions of current images available on the net. To say this is a big job is an understatement, but the government has the resources to do it. The big savings is that these images do not have to be analyzed for steg - they are simply the baseline. Incoming images that match existing public images could pass freely, while changed images would get more detailed analysis. This would weed out the vast majority of images, making more thorough analysis of the rest a do-able task.
This might not actually work - after all I've only been thinking about it for 10 minutes - but it does indicate that there are potential solutions to this problem that do not involve conducting super computer statistical analysis on every single image file on the net.
There is no possibility to tell one set of random data from another set of random data.
This is tue, but the message data, by definition, cannot be truly random. It must have some sort of logical order for it to be decrypted by the intended recipient. Granted, that pattern may be very difficult to detect, but that's the point of the AF contract?
It is very clear this is an impossible task.
Not clear at all. I've read three very creative approaches to solving this problem in the last ten minutes and thought of another approach myself. It may not be easy to do, but don't make the mistake that just because you (or I) can't see a way to do it that it can't be done.
The Germans thought their Inigma code was unbreakable during WWII but the Brits cracked it. Closer to the present, everyone thought cracking 128-bit encryption was impossible - for an entire year.
Rather than some obscure marketing ploy is is most likely that the high end cards require perfect chips to work reliably. nvidia has to guarantee their cards work, and have to replace them when they don't, so it is likely the high end cards have had a lot more testing done to find the reliable chipsets. If only 5% of the chipsets work in the high end card that is a lot of testing required to identify that 5%. In addition the failure rate of the finished cards (even using the top 5% of chips) is also likely to be higher resulting in a lot of expensive finished cards that end up in the crusher.
Its simply that cards certified to work at the limit of thier capability are more expensive to make, while cards with exactly the same components certified to work at a less demanding speeds are cheaper to make.
I agree. I just had a thought about crime and punishment... All those little punishments Adrian clearly didn't get from his parents for 22 years are now being handed out in one big heavy-duty lump. Unfortunately for Adrian it's being handed out by the Feds and involves jail time. Federal prison - in loco parentis".
That's about the dumbest rationale I have ever heard. The cost of the wire is one of the least important factors in determining broadband cost.
It's time that people like this stop thinking the whole goddam world is here just to satisfy their personal "curiosity". To be perfectly blunt, you can take your Adrian Lamo Defense Fund and cram it up your ass. I want to see this guy do the maximum stretch as a lesson to other "curious" fellows.
I agree with you except for one point. I don't think he should get the maximum sentence, which could be up to 20 years. Jail time yes, but maximum no. I suspect the FBI and the NYTimes are in fact going very easy on him contrary to the moaning going on here. Their carefully worded statement of damages ("more than $5,000") allows the judge great latitude in sentencing. If they had stated true damages Mr. Lamo would be facing REAL prison time since stealing more than $100,000 involves major prison time. Since this was a Federal crime, strict sentencing guidelines often leave judges no leeway in being lenient.
I also suspect that the FBI has taught Mr. Lamo a valuable lesson about the real world that his parents never got around to - "No one really believes all that crap you spout, Adrian."
I've read some of the things he's written and some interviews with him. He is an astonishingly bright and articulate man for his age in America. He doesn't talk like a punk or a hacker, knows exactly what he's doing and why and can elucidate it. I've not noted any tendency to bragadocio.
I, too, have heard him talk about his expliots, and I had a completely different take on him. I remember thinking "Who does this egotistical SOB think he is and how stupid does he think we are?" He rationlized his illegal and criminal behavior as some sort of do-gooder crusade when all he was really doing was having fun, enriching himself, and getting publicity to feed his ego. If he isn't a braggart what were those absurd TechTV interviews about? Oh, he SOUNDS humble on those interviews, but he is really quite a con man and self-promoter.
I certainly do not find him bright and articulate. I find his silly rationalizations of his behavior show a REMARKABLE lack of maturity for a person his age. He's 22 years old!? He acts like he's 12! "I wasn't stealing your money! I was just checking to see if I could get it out of your wallet to show you it wasn't safe! You believe that don't you? My Mommy and Daddy would believe me!"
However, giving him a little slack, maybe those are the real culprits here - his parents who didn't put a stop to his crap for 22 years. I suspect the FBI has done their job for them.
YOu are interpreting the crime incorrectly. He is not charged for using or accessing public information, he is charged for stealing access to a pay-for-use service and charging the cost to the New York Times. The information on LexisNexis is available from various sources and is (mostly) free to all, but LesixNexis goes to a lot of expense to gather all this information in one place, catalog it and make it readily available - FOR A FEE. In truth, the information would be almost impossilble for you or I to get otherwise. LexisNexis provides a valuable service - and that is the point - it is VALUABLE, was stolen by Lamo, and paid for by the NYT without their consent.
There is absolutely no difference than if Lamo had stolen $100,000 in cash from the Times and used the money to pay his LexisNexis bill.
Here's news for you: "In excess of $5,000" could mean $5,001 or $500,000. For all we know $5,000 is the legal break point for certain charges or punishments, hence the statement that the damages were in excess of that amount. FOR ALL WE KNOW, the government and the New York Times IS cutting him a great deal by stating the damages this way. Perhaps if the real damages were stated officially to the judge Lamo might fall under sentencing guidelines that would put him in prison for TWENTY years. At least this way Lamo has a chance.
One thing I do know is that 3,000 Lexis Nexis searches cost a heck of a lot more than $5,000.
OK, he's guilty, by plea.
What, is this some new legal principle? If you admit you did something you are somehow NOT guilty of doing it? He was caught red-handed. No way Lamo did not do the best thing for Lamo by pleading guilty. No sympathy from me on that point.
I've heard Lamo claim, after the fact, that he was only trying to help companies by breaking into their networks and stealing from them. Only a moron would expect anyone to believe that.