Overly tight security rules lead to Type II security errors... the kind where the people who are supposed to get into the system can't. As a result, people start circumventing the rules, which ends up weakening that overly tight security... oops.
People who make the rules need to think a little more sometimes.
Lamo isn't exactly running from the law at this point, he's just insisting that they unseal the charges against him before he'll agree to turn himself in. If they want to come out and arrest him, they better do it by book because a camera crew from Keven Spacey's TriggerStreet Productions just happens to be doing a documentary about Lamo and will gladly document any excessive force.
The whole story about mom and dad's house seems to demonstrate that the FBI is more into using force than reading the rulebook right now. They tried to intimidate mom into letting them tear the house apart, claiming they'd have no problem getting the warrent. Well, mom called that bluff and it turned out that the FBI didn't have the cards. The FBI has plenty on Lamo for sure, but not enough to go snooping around his parents house. They only wanted to rough up his parents (if not physically, at least mentally by making a mess of their house) because they want to scare Lamo, but this was a scare tactic not allowed by the Constitution and the courts.
Lamo deserves the book thrown at him, but the question now is more of whether he deserves a paperback or an unabridged dictionary. And so far, the FBI seems to be trying to throw an encycolpedia....
Taking a socical security number and giving it back to the people who run the system isn't harmful, it's simply proof that Lamo did break into the system. It's illegal, but nobody is hurt by the action.
Disclosing the SSN to the public or trying to get a loan under an SSN that's not your own is quite harmful... but nobody's accusing Lamo of doing that, the FBI is simply insinuating that all people who steal SSNs do bad things with them, without having any proof that Lamo did so. FUD 101...
Yeah, there are many reporters through the years who have broken laws in the course of reporting, and I'm sure some archive searchers can come up with NY Times examples, where the investigative reporter escapes punishment because they broke the law in the name of journalism.
Lamo didn't down the company, or commit credit card fraud with Rush Limbaugh's SSN. There are much worse hackers out there, but the FBI's just looking for somebody to make an example of because they can't quite figure out where the first SoBig came from...
There's no question that he's broken a law or two in the process here, the question now is more of whether he'll be doing 100 hours of community service of 100 years to life in jail. This has the potential of turning into the Kevin Mitnick case all over again, where the government starts spewing false charges and forgets basic things like telling the accused what they're accused of.
Lamo did the electronic version of breaking and entering, he certainly should get less of a sentance than a bank robber, rapist or murder gets...
The electronic voting systems are presently attempting to solve a problem nobody had. We definitely do not need or want a "paperless" ballot, we just need a paper ballot that makes it unmistakably clear to both human and machine what the voter intends to say.
There were three key problems in Florida 2000:
1. Punch cards were nonsensical. A user can think they've followed the punch card instructions sucessfully, when they really voted for somebody else. This happens a whole lot less often on a simple "check the box next to the name you wish to vote for" form,
2. People misunderstood the butterfly ballot This was just plain bad user interface design. The stated intent was to allow a bigger font for the names so that poor-sighted people could have an easier time, but the result was that people couldn't figure out that the "3" hole rather than the "2" belonged to the second name on page 1. A little beta testing could have prevented this gaffe... when people who thought they voted for Person A hand over a ballot for Person B, you've got a broken system.
People didn't understand the rules If somebody who isn't on the voter rolls shows up polls claiming they should be allowed to vote, they're supposed to be allowed to cast a ballot that will be kept aside until their challenge is sorted out. If somebody shows up at the polls before the cutoff time and gets in line, they're allowed to vote. Oh, and let's make sure the poll workers know what time they're supposed to shut down the polls. These are all human errors that no computer program will be any better at fixing... so no tech fix is going to be a magic bullet. Corrupt and/or dumb poll workers will always enter the system, and there will always be a need to identify and remove them.
The solution to this problem is an electronic system that results in a paper ballot with both human-readable and machine-readable markings that gets walked over to the ballot box. The machines can do the first count, but humans will have an easy time doing a recount in the event that people want proof that the machines are playing fairly. If a user gets a paper ballot and notices a mistake, they should be able to go over to the poll workers, have their "spoiled" ballot discarded, and try again at the machines with the poll workers' (note: plural) help if the votor desires it.
Seems simple enough... so why are these companies coming up with less simple and less secure systems than the ones they're upgrading?
Yes, but the point is that they're not gonna sell you content-on-media in the form of CD or DVD but instead deliver to you bits through the air or wires. You'll still need your HD if you want to keep the content, but the point is how thye'll get it to you the first time.
Google's simply complying with the request and blocking the URLs that were validly mentioned in the takedown notice. However, Google's not going to do anything more than the law requires, so any new URLs that pop up will certainly get GoogleBot's attention and the cat and mouse game goes on...
Because you expose yourself to a lawsuit by whomever you complained about every time you make a bogus claim. A small handful of users won't have enough resources to sue the RIAA, but the major ISPs would certainly help their users file a class action lawsuit against you...
Centralizing IM is the reason why IM spam has been kept down to a soft wisper compared to e-mail spam. Spammers simply can't set up an IM sending bot without being quickly detected and pulled from the network... try doing that with good old e-mail.
Let's face it, anybody whose running anything other than the officially certified interfaces to an IM network is essentially stealing a service. MSN is at least letting other developers stay in the game if they pay up, AIM's main tactic has been to styfle any such developer with sudden changes to the protcol.
There doesn't need to be financial responsibility, the pain of having a personalized downtime because your network port has been shut off is good enough.
Most sucessful schools I know of do that. If a user is detected sending out the virus-of-the-week, their port gets shut down until a student-admin can stop by with a CD with the latest MacAffee software. If you want uninterrupted service, keep your own software up to date.
Yep, this report is just as biased as something from Microsoft saying that the Government should use their products. Consider the sources once in a while...
Furthermore, infinite safety costs infinite money. It's just not gonna happen.
You can't prevent things you don't want to happen with absolute perfection... you can only try to lower the likelyhood so it happens less often and reduce the damage when it does happen.
The government will gladly take action, as soon as the operators of the blacklists show up at their local courthouse and file a complaint.
Uh oh, there's the problem. The operators of present generation of blocklists have tried to sheild themselves from lawsuits from the wrongly accused and those pretending to be wrongly accused by trying to keep their identies hidden. If they want to file a police complaint, they're welcome to, but when the case makes it to court they're the people involved are gonna get called to the witness stand. "State your name and address for the record."
Having a system that works 99% of the time will still lead to that unlucky 1% being the victims of the system. Blacklists have to be accurate in what they list or some bystander is gonna get caught...
Without blocklists, email for my small business at least would be useless.
I think what this means is that the blocklists are a band-aid to keep a busted protocol around for a few extra years. Spam prevention needs to be more intrisic in the protocol to be effective, which means tossing SMTP and starting over. From the death of blocklists will hopefully cause something better to rise...
This is also checkmate to the SPEWS lawsuit-avoidance scheme of trying to keep the identity of the blocklist operators secret. You can't anonymously accuse somebody of a crime in the USA, nor can you sue them in civil court. If they wanna legally complain about being DOSed, they'll have to come out of hiding.
Slashdot Mirror
Overly tight security rules lead to Type II security errors... the kind where the people who are supposed to get into the system can't. As a result, people start circumventing the rules, which ends up weakening that overly tight security... oops.
People who make the rules need to think a little more sometimes.
Why not use a simple password manager program such as the popular Gator... uhm, er, uhm, maybe that's not such a wise idea!
Lamo isn't exactly running from the law at this point, he's just insisting that they unseal the charges against him before he'll agree to turn himself in. If they want to come out and arrest him, they better do it by book because a camera crew from Keven Spacey's TriggerStreet Productions just happens to be doing a documentary about Lamo and will gladly document any excessive force.
The whole story about mom and dad's house seems to demonstrate that the FBI is more into using force than reading the rulebook right now. They tried to intimidate mom into letting them tear the house apart, claiming they'd have no problem getting the warrent. Well, mom called that bluff and it turned out that the FBI didn't have the cards. The FBI has plenty on Lamo for sure, but not enough to go snooping around his parents house. They only wanted to rough up his parents (if not physically, at least mentally by making a mess of their house) because they want to scare Lamo, but this was a scare tactic not allowed by the Constitution and the courts.
Lamo deserves the book thrown at him, but the question now is more of whether he deserves a paperback or an unabridged dictionary. And so far, the FBI seems to be trying to throw an encycolpedia....
Taking a socical security number and giving it back to the people who run the system isn't harmful, it's simply proof that Lamo did break into the system. It's illegal, but nobody is hurt by the action.
Disclosing the SSN to the public or trying to get a loan under an SSN that's not your own is quite harmful... but nobody's accusing Lamo of doing that, the FBI is simply insinuating that all people who steal SSNs do bad things with them, without having any proof that Lamo did so. FUD 101...
Yeah, there are many reporters through the years who have broken laws in the course of reporting, and I'm sure some archive searchers can come up with NY Times examples, where the investigative reporter escapes punishment because they broke the law in the name of journalism.
Lamo didn't down the company, or commit credit card fraud with Rush Limbaugh's SSN. There are much worse hackers out there, but the FBI's just looking for somebody to make an example of because they can't quite figure out where the first SoBig came from...
There's no question that he's broken a law or two in the process here, the question now is more of whether he'll be doing 100 hours of community service of 100 years to life in jail. This has the potential of turning into the Kevin Mitnick case all over again, where the government starts spewing false charges and forgets basic things like telling the accused what they're accused of.
Lamo did the electronic version of breaking and entering, he certainly should get less of a sentance than a bank robber, rapist or murder gets...
By TechTV... The Screen Savers last night had a live 10 minute phone call with Lamo at 7pm ET.
The electronic voting systems are presently attempting to solve a problem nobody had. We definitely do not need or want a "paperless" ballot, we just need a paper ballot that makes it unmistakably clear to both human and machine what the voter intends to say.
There were three key problems in Florida 2000:
1. Punch cards were nonsensical.
A user can think they've followed the punch card instructions sucessfully, when they really voted for somebody else. This happens a whole lot less often on a simple "check the box next to the name you wish to vote for" form,
2. People misunderstood the butterfly ballot
This was just plain bad user interface design. The stated intent was to allow a bigger font for the names so that poor-sighted people could have an easier time, but the result was that people couldn't figure out that the "3" hole rather than the "2" belonged to the second name on page 1. A little beta testing could have prevented this gaffe... when people who thought they voted for Person A hand over a ballot for Person B, you've got a broken system.
People didn't understand the rules
If somebody who isn't on the voter rolls shows up polls claiming they should be allowed to vote, they're supposed to be allowed to cast a ballot that will be kept aside until their challenge is sorted out. If somebody shows up at the polls before the cutoff time and gets in line, they're allowed to vote. Oh, and let's make sure the poll workers know what time they're supposed to shut down the polls. These are all human errors that no computer program will be any better at fixing... so no tech fix is going to be a magic bullet. Corrupt and/or dumb poll workers will always enter the system, and there will always be a need to identify and remove them.
The solution to this problem is an electronic system that results in a paper ballot with both human-readable and machine-readable markings that gets walked over to the ballot box. The machines can do the first count, but humans will have an easy time doing a recount in the event that people want proof that the machines are playing fairly. If a user gets a paper ballot and notices a mistake, they should be able to go over to the poll workers, have their "spoiled" ballot discarded, and try again at the machines with the poll workers' (note: plural) help if the votor desires it.
Seems simple enough... so why are these companies coming up with less simple and less secure systems than the ones they're upgrading?
This ISP was also a dialtone provider...
Yes, but the point is that they're not gonna sell you content-on-media in the form of CD or DVD but instead deliver to you bits through the air or wires. You'll still need your HD if you want to keep the content, but the point is how thye'll get it to you the first time.
Yeah, I don't see much of a difference between getting Chris's content over RSS and simply going to his website... same text either way.
And what if the sky falls? That'd be a horrible state of affairs for the world too...
Google's simply complying with the request and blocking the URLs that were validly mentioned in the takedown notice. However, Google's not going to do anything more than the law requires, so any new URLs that pop up will certainly get GoogleBot's attention and the cat and mouse game goes on...
Because you expose yourself to a lawsuit by whomever you complained about every time you make a bogus claim. A small handful of users won't have enough resources to sue the RIAA, but the major ISPs would certainly help their users file a class action lawsuit against you...
Centralizing IM is the reason why IM spam has been kept down to a soft wisper compared to e-mail spam. Spammers simply can't set up an IM sending bot without being quickly detected and pulled from the network... try doing that with good old e-mail.
I think the point is, Trillian will most likely pay up since it has a revenue model behind it... but any dreams of an OSS MSN client die here.
Let's face it, anybody whose running anything other than the officially certified interfaces to an IM network is essentially stealing a service. MSN is at least letting other developers stay in the game if they pay up, AIM's main tactic has been to styfle any such developer with sudden changes to the protcol.
There doesn't need to be financial responsibility, the pain of having a personalized downtime because your network port has been shut off is good enough.
Most sucessful schools I know of do that. If a user is detected sending out the virus-of-the-week, their port gets shut down until a student-admin can stop by with a CD with the latest MacAffee software. If you want uninterrupted service, keep your own software up to date.
Yep, this report is just as biased as something from Microsoft saying that the Government should use their products. Consider the sources once in a while...
Furthermore, infinite safety costs infinite money. It's just not gonna happen.
You can't prevent things you don't want to happen with absolute perfection... you can only try to lower the likelyhood so it happens less often and reduce the damage when it does happen.
The government will gladly take action, as soon as the operators of the blacklists show up at their local courthouse and file a complaint.
Uh oh, there's the problem. The operators of present generation of blocklists have tried to sheild themselves from lawsuits from the wrongly accused and those pretending to be wrongly accused by trying to keep their identies hidden. If they want to file a police complaint, they're welcome to, but when the case makes it to court they're the people involved are gonna get called to the witness stand. "State your name and address for the record."
Having a system that works 99% of the time will still lead to that unlucky 1% being the victims of the system. Blacklists have to be accurate in what they list or some bystander is gonna get caught...
Without blocklists, email for my small business at least would be useless.
I think what this means is that the blocklists are a band-aid to keep a busted protocol around for a few extra years. Spam prevention needs to be more intrisic in the protocol to be effective, which means tossing SMTP and starting over. From the death of blocklists will hopefully cause something better to rise...
This is also checkmate to the SPEWS lawsuit-avoidance scheme of trying to keep the identity of the blocklist operators secret. You can't anonymously accuse somebody of a crime in the USA, nor can you sue them in civil court. If they wanna legally complain about being DOSed, they'll have to come out of hiding.