"Encryption wouldn't do much good when a judge will just order you to reveal the password(s) under pain of a contempt charge and jail until you concede, regardless of claims of bad memory, etc.
I know the bolded text is out of context but it is important regardless of the type of pain. The classic dilema this course of action creates is how can the judge tell encrypted data from random data? If the prisoner decrypts one message and it is not what the authorities "know" is there, do we then lock him up until he reveals the "other key" to decode the random crap scattered across the storage media? If it's a terror plot we are investigating do we "take off the gloves" to get that "other key"? If he does not decrypt any messages how can the judge decide he knows the key in the first place? The logic is the same as what was used in witch hunts, and yes, they did find alot of witches.
"There could also be destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice charges for wiping or destroying the hardrives."
How can you charge someone for wiping their own drive BEFORE it was siezed?
"I'm all for standing on ones' principals, but when you're looking at a long stretch in prison, with a whole life, a career, and a family to consider, priorities can change in a hurry."
For quite a few years record labels have been buying information from Big Champagne to help them decide what songs to push on the radio. For some strange reason [sarcasm], the labels are reluctant to talk about they use Big Champagne to "predict" their next big hit.
"We call what goes on in Iraq "terrorism" because they slaughter a hundred times as many Iraqui civilians as they do American troops, they kidnap and murder foreign civilians, and other reprehensible (even by the standards of war) behaviour."
There is one reason for this, power, whoever is doing it wants Iraqis to think western troops cannot protect them and thus hasten a western retreat, ie: Iraqis have a choice, "with the insurgents or against them".
Terror is terror regardless of who initiates it, looking back over the 20th century the only distinction I can see between between a 15yr old Afgan warlord and a superpower is scale and experience. The US nuked Japan, the UK firestomed Dresden, Japan bombed Peal harbour, China ran over students with tanks, Uganda stitched peoples arms on backwards, Rawanda hacked a million of it's people to death, Iraq used poision gas on children, the US prefered napalm, the list of "reprehensible" acts is fucking endless and I cannot think of an armed group that has not somewhere along the line practised the art of terror to further their cause and/or quell dissent.
There is nothing noble or honourable to be found in the wars the rich and powerfull use to settle their differences, war has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with dehumanising "the enemy" down to a level somewhere below vermin. The French had a revolution against their rich and powerfull and not long after replaced their oppressors with Napolean, the Russian Tzar was overthrown but soon replaced with Stalin. You don't even have to turn to history, Mugabe is a living example that "the people" have a very slim chance of winning anything by revolution, they simply jump from frying pan to fire and back again. The American war of independance is often portrayed in a favorable light, but did you ever notice there was, and still is, very little difference between how the two nations are governed?
Yes there are a multitude of heros and villans on every side and the overwhelming majority of victims are "ordinary citizens". However "ordinary citizens" are also the ones who enable battles to be fought and "witches" to be burnt. If you follow the pied-piper of blame all the way to the battlefield, you forefit the luxury of choosing to fight or not. If you are lucky enough to survive the fight with a reasonably intact mental ability you will have the rest of your life to ponder what the fuck it was all about in the first place.
BTW: Don't take this as an attack on the rich and powerfull, the military, terrorist, freedom fighters, the boy scouts or any other arbitary group, take it as an attack on mankinds ability to find scapegoats where ever he looks for them. After all it would be impossible for anyone to have a decent war if "ordinary citizens" had the ability to ignore the subtle tones of the piper.
I would argue with you but until you spend some time in a land with strict gun laws you won't understand me. The small arms trade (aka NRA) gets people on side because they make excellent use of the "self defence" scare tactic, and as we can plainly see from the war on terror, scare tatics work! Thankfully when the NRA tried influencing my country's laws the majority of people saw through their bullshit.
"The reality is that electrical forces are 10^39 more powerful than gravity."
Apparently none of the black holes read the memo and to this day they stubbornly refuse to stop squashing electron and protons together. They claim they can't read because the electromagnetic waves carring the information get blue-shifted into oblivion. Not to mention their spectacles keep disapearing in a flash of gamma rays everytime they get a new pair.
/rant.
Probably a better term, they also used embassy issued mobiles and government issued credit cards to rent the kidnap van and pay for the luxury hideout. The CIA are not the only clumsy spies, the French spooks who sunk the Rainbow Warrior were just as inept. Makes you wonder what deeds have been done in our name and why we tolerate state sponsered terror in the first place.
I think the troll mod is unfair because I belive all men should be considered politically equal but the stuff about France and Britain is pure rubbish. For a start the British empire went into decline well before WW2.
Also just because some cultures think commerce is dirty and others think sex is dirty dosen't stop both from happening in both cultures. People just don't talk about "it" at the dinner table.
I also feel compelled to point out that the UK has been overrun by Celts, Romans, Vikings, Normans, just about everyone except pigmys, the rest of Europe is just as mixed up, maybe even more so. Take a look a Jarrod Diamonds work for some insights on how geography has influenced the ups and downs of various civilizations in the past.
Britain and France have the power to push a button and incinerate a city anywhere on the planet. When France recently ordered the destruction of the Ivory Coasts' airforce, ~45 minutes later it was a smoldering pile of metal, geography would seem to be less of an issue nowadays.
The only difference is the reaction, the right-wingers kick your arse and take your money, the left wingers take your money and lock you up for re-Nedification. I'm nearly 50 and still haven't worked out which is worse.
"Is it acting like a serious business or some hobby run by a bunch of high-school kids?"
I would say "hobby" and google is also saying "hobby" to the investors as it has from the start. They are pushing the responsibilty for investment decisions back on to the fund managers, precisely where it belongs both morally and legally. Have they attempted to insulate themselves from a bubble by cashing in stocks, you bet!
"Proving anything at all about something that doesn't exist seems to be impossible, just on the basis of logic."
On the basis of how wierd logic can get, you first have to prove it doesn't exist, yet you can't.
On the basis we don't know all the details, if the blank laptop is all the evidence there is then all you can prove is a maybe breach of policy and/or contract.
OTOH: On the basis there could be more details than exist in the article, it may not be immposible to logically deduce foul play in the absence of a corpse.
I do understand the concept of torturing someone to death because they can't give a key that dycrypts random garbage but that does not seem to apply in this case. A once functioal drive has been wiped and he admits to having done it, if he had said "I don't know" it would be much harder to show malice.
Yes it is, but the crux of the matter is that the forecasts and growth hype did not originate from google.
"Google doesn't predict revenue?"
Good greif man, that link is not a forcast the pension funds can use to satisfy their risk analyisis! Of course google make internal revenue forcasts, but they are not communicating them to the market. They, like many other smaller publicly owned companies are just not willing to put their balls on the chopping block in return for investment by pension funds and the like and why should they?
Exactly, I choose google over the others because they protest the loudest when it comes to complying with government censorship and snooping. Looking out for their users interests with issues like free-speech and privacy is what gives them a firm grip on market share, protects their revenue stream and ensures long term viability. And yes, they make a shitload of money following that strategy, so what?
I do not for second belive google is run by saints but to be blunt it's not hard to appear "warm and cuddly" when compared to the slugs at Yahoo or MSN. The reason I know this is because google protested loud enough for news media to become curious about the silent practices of search engines. As for GMail, I have not used it but I know they scan the contents for targeted marketing. The reason I know is google advertised the fact as loudly as it advertised the 1GB limit. My question is, what do MSN and Yahoo do with the information and who are they sharing it with? Not to mention my past experience with the MSMessenger/Outlook Express symbiosis was no different to fighting a stubborn information sucking virus.
"Everything GOOG does is for the protection of their revenue stream: advertising"
And for "advertising" to be intrested in google, google needs users. Google actions on censorship, privacy and revenue forcasting have pissed off some powerfull groups in both bussiness and politics, so tell me, how does getting the puppet masters of mass media conglomerates offside protect their revenue?
Off course thay are making money, what the fuck is wrong with that? The point is google does not have to put up notices, the censors would prefer them to simply roll over like Yahoo and MSN. The philosophy behind this is "you have to be in the system to change it". I use search engines like everyone else, but I wont use MSN or Yahoo until they at least attempt to fight censorship in China and government prying in the US.
"google's saying f-u to china? everything google is doing on google.cn is reviewed and approved by china. can you please explain how exactly that is an f-u?"
First of all everything is not reviewed and approved, the censors ban sites with black-lists and keywords. Second google redirects enquires about blocked sites back to the censors by posting a notice. The other major engines simply remove the offending results so the user does not even know they are being censored.
"please don't try to tell me that china can completely hide the existence of the internet's largest and by far most prolific search service even in a censored internet"
Take away the words "don't", "completely" and "even", or to put it another way, how would the american public know the justice dept is snooping if it were not for google jacking up about it?
"but you have to be pretty blind to think that google agreeing to censor information has anything to do w/ them trying to help the chinese people or saying f-u to the chinese government"
They have a choice, it's either censor or get out, they chose a compromise, comply and point out those who are enforcing the censorship. You have to be naieve to think money is the only factor driving corporate strategy. Money brings power and from what I can see google is using it's power to promote freedom of speech and privacy. MSN and Yahoo do not, and are willing to hunt down curious users for government censors. Google may not live up to your idea of "do no evil" but they are light years ahead of the others when it comes to informing and protecting their users.
Is it spin to say at least google is making a noise intead of quietly rolling over like the other two have in both China and the US. They are not saints but they are certainly the least "evil" of the big three.
I think you underestimate the power of the simple unblinking slot as an interface to the complexity of the web, one legend has it that it was inspired by the HHGTTG. Googles main page is synonomous with search like coke is synomous with cola, marketing gurus would sell their soul to have that sort of "creativity".
OTOH: If people can't reasonably trust the independence of the slot's answers or privacy of the questions it will eventually loose out to a more trustworthy slot, even if it is hidden by a screenfull of ads. It is in googles interest to comply with the law, it is in googles long term intrests to publicly highlight "big brother" threats by erecting censorship notices and fighting court battles to keep data private. Amongst the major search engines there are none that resist political shenanigans anywhere near as forcefully as google does, personaly I wont even consider the other engines until they stop rolling over to the authorities and start doing something constructive to deter big brother from getting a foothold.
Your hatred for all things corporate is blining you to GP's point, how can censorship be overcome in China if the people don't know it is happening? Simarly with the justice dept, googles refusal to comply is what brings the media attention to the issue. In both China and the US the other main players (Yahoo and MSN) simply rolled over for the authorities. Who would you choose from the big three search engines, one of the two that are quiet and submissive about government demands or the one who says f-u in their own subtle style.
Unless you want to go back to the jungle, you cannot un-invent or destroy commerce and trade, nor can you divorce bussiness from politics. Even in the jungle an attractive wife for the chief is likely to cost quite a few pigs. You would be well advised to learn something about money and politics in the concrete jungle before it eats you alive.
If google is within the law then what's the real problem? Could it be the "tons of investors" are stopping themselves from investing because of what they promised the people who own the money, ie: risk analysis. They wanted a slice of the pie at $80 a share but googles practices got in the way, they were forced to make their own forecasts. If they did fork out someones pension to get a slice, googles refusal to change their practices has left them exposed since they didn't tick all the risk boxes.
The price of the shares skyrocketed after the IPO, ask yourself, why did that happen if google "doesn't do forecasts"? Google won't play the "markets" game and at the moment it is cashed up and doesn't need to. Forecasts are not worth the paper they are written on and can get you into deep shit. It's more honest and much simpler to point to financial reports than to fire up a crystal ball every time you need some milk from the pension cow.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I miss Roger Ramjet too.
"Encryption wouldn't do much good when a judge will just order you to reveal the password(s) under pain of a contempt charge and jail until you concede, regardless of claims of bad memory, etc.
I know the bolded text is out of context but it is important regardless of the type of pain. The classic dilema this course of action creates is how can the judge tell encrypted data from random data? If the prisoner decrypts one message and it is not what the authorities "know" is there, do we then lock him up until he reveals the "other key" to decode the random crap scattered across the storage media? If it's a terror plot we are investigating do we "take off the gloves" to get that "other key"? If he does not decrypt any messages how can the judge decide he knows the key in the first place? The logic is the same as what was used in witch hunts, and yes, they did find alot of witches.
"There could also be destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice charges for wiping or destroying the hardrives."
How can you charge someone for wiping their own drive BEFORE it was siezed?
"I'm all for standing on ones' principals, but when you're looking at a long stretch in prison, with a whole life, a career, and a family to consider, priorities can change in a hurry."
Principles are expensive, choose them wisely.
"You have done nothing lately to protect them..."
In other news - Authorities suspect arson in the WTO fire but are still no closer to explaining the source of the brimstone.
For quite a few years record labels have been buying information from Big Champagne to help them decide what songs to push on the radio. For some strange reason [sarcasm], the labels are reluctant to talk about they use Big Champagne to "predict" their next big hit.
"We call what goes on in Iraq "terrorism" because they slaughter a hundred times as many Iraqui civilians as they do American troops, they kidnap and murder foreign civilians, and other reprehensible (even by the standards of war) behaviour."
There is one reason for this, power, whoever is doing it wants Iraqis to think western troops cannot protect them and thus hasten a western retreat, ie: Iraqis have a choice, "with the insurgents or against them".
Terror is terror regardless of who initiates it, looking back over the 20th century the only distinction I can see between between a 15yr old Afgan warlord and a superpower is scale and experience. The US nuked Japan, the UK firestomed Dresden, Japan bombed Peal harbour, China ran over students with tanks, Uganda stitched peoples arms on backwards, Rawanda hacked a million of it's people to death, Iraq used poision gas on children, the US prefered napalm, the list of "reprehensible" acts is fucking endless and I cannot think of an armed group that has not somewhere along the line practised the art of terror to further their cause and/or quell dissent.
There is nothing noble or honourable to be found in the wars the rich and powerfull use to settle their differences, war has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with dehumanising "the enemy" down to a level somewhere below vermin. The French had a revolution against their rich and powerfull and not long after replaced their oppressors with Napolean, the Russian Tzar was overthrown but soon replaced with Stalin. You don't even have to turn to history, Mugabe is a living example that "the people" have a very slim chance of winning anything by revolution, they simply jump from frying pan to fire and back again. The American war of independance is often portrayed in a favorable light, but did you ever notice there was, and still is, very little difference between how the two nations are governed?
Yes there are a multitude of heros and villans on every side and the overwhelming majority of victims are "ordinary citizens". However "ordinary citizens" are also the ones who enable battles to be fought and "witches" to be burnt. If you follow the pied-piper of blame all the way to the battlefield, you forefit the luxury of choosing to fight or not. If you are lucky enough to survive the fight with a reasonably intact mental ability you will have the rest of your life to ponder what the fuck it was all about in the first place.
BTW: Don't take this as an attack on the rich and powerfull, the military, terrorist, freedom fighters, the boy scouts or any other arbitary group, take it as an attack on mankinds ability to find scapegoats where ever he looks for them. After all it would be impossible for anyone to have a decent war if "ordinary citizens" had the ability to ignore the subtle tones of the piper.
I would argue with you but until you spend some time in a land with strict gun laws you won't understand me. The small arms trade (aka NRA) gets people on side because they make excellent use of the "self defence" scare tactic, and as we can plainly see from the war on terror, scare tatics work! Thankfully when the NRA tried influencing my country's laws the majority of people saw through their bullshit.
Yeah keep it to yourself, I hate it when people point out Wally before I have had chance to look at the picture.
"The reality is that electrical forces are 10^39 more powerful than gravity."
Apparently none of the black holes read the memo and to this day they stubbornly refuse to stop squashing electron and protons together. They claim they can't read because the electromagnetic waves carring the information get blue-shifted into oblivion. Not to mention their spectacles keep disapearing in a flash of gamma rays everytime they get a new pair.
/rant.
Probably a better term, they also used embassy issued mobiles and government issued credit cards to rent the kidnap van and pay for the luxury hideout. The CIA are not the only clumsy spies, the French spooks who sunk the Rainbow Warrior were just as inept. Makes you wonder what deeds have been done in our name and why we tolerate state sponsered terror in the first place.
I think the troll mod is unfair because I belive all men should be considered politically equal but the stuff about France and Britain is pure rubbish. For a start the British empire went into decline well before WW2.
Also just because some cultures think commerce is dirty and others think sex is dirty dosen't stop both from happening in both cultures. People just don't talk about "it" at the dinner table.
I also feel compelled to point out that the UK has been overrun by Celts, Romans, Vikings, Normans, just about everyone except pigmys, the rest of Europe is just as mixed up, maybe even more so. Take a look a Jarrod Diamonds work for some insights on how geography has influenced the ups and downs of various civilizations in the past.
Britain and France have the power to push a button and incinerate a city anywhere on the planet. When France recently ordered the destruction of the Ivory Coasts' airforce, ~45 minutes later it was a smoldering pile of metal, geography would seem to be less of an issue nowadays.
Look at the last coloumn in these DOE stats.
The only difference is the reaction, the right-wingers kick your arse and take your money, the left wingers take your money and lock you up for re-Nedification. I'm nearly 50 and still haven't worked out which is worse.
The Italian police discovered they are either stupid or arrogant.
"How in the world is Google considered "small"?"
Heh, bad grammar.
"Is it acting like a serious business or some hobby run by a bunch of high-school kids?"
I would say "hobby" and google is also saying "hobby" to the investors as it has from the start. They are pushing the responsibilty for investment decisions back on to the fund managers, precisely where it belongs both morally and legally. Have they attempted to insulate themselves from a bubble by cashing in stocks, you bet!
You may be right but anything "non-crossplatform" will not get sniffed by IT departments unless it's bundled with sex, money or drugs.
Fair point, it's a lot more complex than I thought but then I have never had a need to distribute it.
"Proving anything at all about something that doesn't exist seems to be impossible, just on the basis of logic."
On the basis of how wierd logic can get, you first have to prove it doesn't exist, yet you can't.
On the basis we don't know all the details, if the blank laptop is all the evidence there is then all you can prove is a maybe breach of policy and/or contract.
OTOH: On the basis there could be more details than exist in the article, it may not be immposible to logically deduce foul play in the absence of a corpse.
I do understand the concept of torturing someone to death because they can't give a key that dycrypts random garbage but that does not seem to apply in this case. A once functioal drive has been wiped and he admits to having done it, if he had said "I don't know" it would be much harder to show malice.
"Umm.... its alot more complex than that."
Yes it is, but the crux of the matter is that the forecasts and growth hype did not originate from google.
"Google doesn't predict revenue?"
Good greif man, that link is not a forcast the pension funds can use to satisfy their risk analyisis! Of course google make internal revenue forcasts, but they are not communicating them to the market. They, like many other smaller publicly owned companies are just not willing to put their balls on the chopping block in return for investment by pension funds and the like and why should they?
"Silence enables abuse"
Exactly, I choose google over the others because they protest the loudest when it comes to complying with government censorship and snooping. Looking out for their users interests with issues like free-speech and privacy is what gives them a firm grip on market share, protects their revenue stream and ensures long term viability. And yes, they make a shitload of money following that strategy, so what?
I do not for second belive google is run by saints but to be blunt it's not hard to appear "warm and cuddly" when compared to the slugs at Yahoo or MSN. The reason I know this is because google protested loud enough for news media to become curious about the silent practices of search engines. As for GMail, I have not used it but I know they scan the contents for targeted marketing. The reason I know is google advertised the fact as loudly as it advertised the 1GB limit. My question is, what do MSN and Yahoo do with the information and who are they sharing it with? Not to mention my past experience with the MSMessenger/Outlook Express symbiosis was no different to fighting a stubborn information sucking virus.
"Everything GOOG does is for the protection of their revenue stream: advertising"
And for "advertising" to be intrested in google, google needs users. Google actions on censorship, privacy and revenue forcasting have pissed off some powerfull groups in both bussiness and politics, so tell me, how does getting the puppet masters of mass media conglomerates offside protect their revenue?
Off course thay are making money, what the fuck is wrong with that? The point is google does not have to put up notices, the censors would prefer them to simply roll over like Yahoo and MSN. The philosophy behind this is "you have to be in the system to change it". I use search engines like everyone else, but I wont use MSN or Yahoo until they at least attempt to fight censorship in China and government prying in the US.
"google's saying f-u to china? everything google is doing on google.cn is reviewed and approved by china. can you please explain how exactly that is an f-u?"
First of all everything is not reviewed and approved, the censors ban sites with black-lists and keywords. Second google redirects enquires about blocked sites back to the censors by posting a notice. The other major engines simply remove the offending results so the user does not even know they are being censored.
"please don't try to tell me that china can completely hide the existence of the internet's largest and by far most prolific search service even in a censored internet"
Take away the words "don't", "completely" and "even", or to put it another way, how would the american public know the justice dept is snooping if it were not for google jacking up about it?
"but you have to be pretty blind to think that google agreeing to censor information has anything to do w/ them trying to help the chinese people or saying f-u to the chinese government"
They have a choice, it's either censor or get out, they chose a compromise, comply and point out those who are enforcing the censorship. You have to be naieve to think money is the only factor driving corporate strategy. Money brings power and from what I can see google is using it's power to promote freedom of speech and privacy. MSN and Yahoo do not, and are willing to hunt down curious users for government censors. Google may not live up to your idea of "do no evil" but they are light years ahead of the others when it comes to informing and protecting their users.
"Fear and greed? Investors are stupid and irrational? Bubble-mania?"
How about third party predictions?
"Are they communicating to you, as owners, as you would like them to, in a clear and accurate way?"
Yes, they are just not saying what their revenue is going to be in the future, they left that black art to the market analysts and financial planners.
Is it spin to say at least google is making a noise intead of quietly rolling over like the other two have in both China and the US. They are not saints but they are certainly the least "evil" of the big three.
I think you underestimate the power of the simple unblinking slot as an interface to the complexity of the web, one legend has it that it was inspired by the HHGTTG. Googles main page is synonomous with search like coke is synomous with cola, marketing gurus would sell their soul to have that sort of "creativity".
OTOH: If people can't reasonably trust the independence of the slot's answers or privacy of the questions it will eventually loose out to a more trustworthy slot, even if it is hidden by a screenfull of ads. It is in googles interest to comply with the law, it is in googles long term intrests to publicly highlight "big brother" threats by erecting censorship notices and fighting court battles to keep data private. Amongst the major search engines there are none that resist political shenanigans anywhere near as forcefully as google does, personaly I wont even consider the other engines until they stop rolling over to the authorities and start doing something constructive to deter big brother from getting a foothold.
Your hatred for all things corporate is blining you to GP's point, how can censorship be overcome in China if the people don't know it is happening? Simarly with the justice dept, googles refusal to comply is what brings the media attention to the issue. In both China and the US the other main players (Yahoo and MSN) simply rolled over for the authorities. Who would you choose from the big three search engines, one of the two that are quiet and submissive about government demands or the one who says f-u in their own subtle style.
Unless you want to go back to the jungle, you cannot un-invent or destroy commerce and trade, nor can you divorce bussiness from politics. Even in the jungle an attractive wife for the chief is likely to cost quite a few pigs. You would be well advised to learn something about money and politics in the concrete jungle before it eats you alive.
If google is within the law then what's the real problem? Could it be the "tons of investors" are stopping themselves from investing because of what they promised the people who own the money, ie: risk analysis. They wanted a slice of the pie at $80 a share but googles practices got in the way, they were forced to make their own forecasts. If they did fork out someones pension to get a slice, googles refusal to change their practices has left them exposed since they didn't tick all the risk boxes.
The price of the shares skyrocketed after the IPO, ask yourself, why did that happen if google "doesn't do forecasts"? Google won't play the "markets" game and at the moment it is cashed up and doesn't need to. Forecasts are not worth the paper they are written on and can get you into deep shit. It's more honest and much simpler to point to financial reports than to fire up a crystal ball every time you need some milk from the pension cow.