From time to time I see posts for medical device coding jobs on craigslist and the like. Quite commonly they require one to have experience with C#.Net. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Heart disease runs in my family. If I get a pacemaker, is it going to be running Microsoft Windows?
This is yet another symptom of a very common disease: enter computers, and all of the sudden medical professionals simply ignore patient privacy and security. May be it's for the lack of understanding on the part of individual doctors, but then where are their governing bodies looking? They are selling us out. They must be corrupt three times over.
Last time I went to a doctor for a regular checkup, I almost asked her: are my responses private? [Yes, I assume] Then why the bloody hell are you typing them into a Windoze? You are sharing them with Microsoft and its affiliates as you are typing them in front of me, so where do they go when I am not looking? I didn't confront her, though, opting instead to be very discrete about my medical condition.
And i bet that that don't even qualifies as the tip of the iceberg.
I agree completely. We get closer to the iceberg if we consider the invasion and the ongoing occupation of Iraq, which is a war of aggression and a war crime, and carries with it a tremendous toll on the civilian population.
If UN is going to police the world, they should start with interstate conflicts, and the rogue state number one, instead of meddling with the internal affairs of a state so week that it will collapse on it own without humanitarian help.
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project. We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta Commentors - only discuss Beta http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
Snowden has demonstrated that a traitor can be a hero
No, he demonstrated that a hero will be called a traitor by the actual traitors he exposed.
traitor (noun) One who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country.
When did he betray USA? When he exposed massive surveillance, which is almost certainly unconstitutional? When he exposed the fact that NSA is operating without any practical oversight? Or the fact that most (if not all) of the Congress has no right to know whether they are being spied on? Or the fact that the highest NSA officials lied, and continue to lie under oath? He broke a low, granted. That makes him a criminal, not automatically a traitor. And in this instance, it also makes him a hero, since the law he broke is oppressive and should have never been on the books.
We need to be careful not to praise the acts only because the results were good.
In this case, however, the laws he broke are oppressive: something you forgot to mention. The reason he cannot return is because USA does not have sufficient whistle-blowing protections. Should a citizen be able to report an illegal activity and a gross abuse of power, regardless of the classification of relevant documents? In a democratic society, it should be the citizen's duty, and an activity protected by the law. So we need to be careful to give Snowden praise he deserves for bringing our attention both to the illegal activities, and to the sad state of our legal system.
1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
But unlike UDHR, this is merely lip service. They give it with one hand, and with the other hand they take it away completely. If a state gives out exclusive distribution rights, then third parties have the right to censor any kind of sharing (3a). Anything but pure flattery can be construed as disrespecting someone's reputation (3a). Anything at all can and have been construed as threatening national security: in particular, any kind of political speech (3b). Sadly, this document does nothing to protect the right to freedom of expression.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Since enforcing copyright against people who share information online non-commercially is clearly a violation of a human right according to UDHR, to which UK is a signatory, how about throwing copyright enforcers in jail instead? How long is the public going to put up with this oppression?
Please, stop spreading the myth of "standard codec" and "quality". Anything will be a standard if it is crammed down the people's throats. As for quality, please. All Web video is shit. Talking about the differences in "quality" between mp4, theora, and webm is like talking about the shades of dung. 5 minute videos of cats playing piano and girls masturbating produce exactly the same effect, no matter the codec. On a smartphone screen too. Give me a break. Feeding the patent mafia, who are basically censoring Wikipedia for millions of users, is a much bigger issue than any subjective difference in video quality. Think it through. Thanks to patents, copyrights, and non-free software, many spy-phone users can't see the videos at all, and you keep talking about a marginal improvement in "quality"?
If this device is fully free and open, then it can obviously spoof every one of its IDs, and provide a strong defense against location tracking (although not perfect, if one wants to jump from tower to tower while keeping the IP connection intact). The problem, as you can see, is not just with the device, but with the cellular providers, who forbid anonymous users. So if this phone can use the cellular network in USA, then it automatically will have to be non-free, and the whole thing is a scam. In particular, their claims of privacy and security would be straight-up lies. If it does not, however, use the towers (wifi only), then it has a chance of being true to its claimed purpose.
and... open source... so useful parts can be reviewed and ported to populars android mods
This is not the main reason why it should be open source, nor is "open source" enough, unless we are using a definition compatible with the free software definition. In fact, both hardware and software should be free, documented, and open in order to justify the basic security and privacy claims the manufacturer is making.
As for "open source", the freedom to distribute modified copies (which is not clearly implied) is paramount to anything aspiring to be secure. If a bug is discovered, and a patch is available, the software will remain insecure if the authorized distributor refuses to apply the patch. Free software does not have this problem.
As for the order of your list, all the things you named are very useful indeed, but they are not worth crap unless the entire thing is free software, and the hardware is open and certified by third parties without special interests. One binary blob makes all security and privacy claims a lie, plain and simple. Not an honest mistake, not a misunderstanding: these people surely understand security, so when they start selling "secure" binary blobs, they will be lying through their teeth.
Stop with space.com slashvertisements already, it's nauseating.
space.com are leeches who are not competent enough to link to the frigging Hubble site. You know, the very minimum of what one can do to credit the work of the people who actually built the space telescope, took these amazing pictures, processed them, and brought them to the masses.
A car that respects the owner's freedom would give full access to the odometer, so the scheme you describe will be too easy to cheat. Instead, it may be necessary to apply the same flat rate to all non-commercial vehicles, and make commercial operators self-report, keeping them honest with hefty fines when they are found cheating.
I am sure there will be willing mechanics, and ways to rip out, disconnect, or fry all of the equipment that either records or transmits data. Free-software cars should also be forthcoming, even if we have to wait another 10 years. After all, they could make cars without software at all, so they should be able to make it with free software only, even if it's behind the curve.
Obviously, you haven't tried not reading it, or you would know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Here's my cure: listen to some Bach, put a drawing of Escher on the wall, and pick up a copy of Enderton's Logic.
Slashdot Mirror
In other news, soylentnews.org is up and running!
From time to time I see posts for medical device coding jobs on craigslist and the like. Quite commonly they require one to have experience with C# .Net. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Heart disease runs in my family. If I get a pacemaker, is it going to be running Microsoft Windows?
This is yet another symptom of a very common disease: enter computers, and all of the sudden medical professionals simply ignore patient privacy and security. May be it's for the lack of understanding on the part of individual doctors, but then where are their governing bodies looking? They are selling us out. They must be corrupt three times over.
Last time I went to a doctor for a regular checkup, I almost asked her: are my responses private? [Yes, I assume] Then why the bloody hell are you typing them into a Windoze? You are sharing them with Microsoft and its affiliates as you are typing them in front of me, so where do they go when I am not looking? I didn't confront her, though, opting instead to be very discrete about my medical condition.
openarena and openttd here :)
And i bet that that don't even qualifies as the tip of the iceberg.
I agree completely. We get closer to the iceberg if we consider the invasion and the ongoing occupation of Iraq, which is a war of aggression and a war crime, and carries with it a tremendous toll on the civilian population.
If UN is going to police the world, they should start with interstate conflicts, and the rogue state number one, instead of meddling with the internal affairs of a state so week that it will collapse on it own without humanitarian help.
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.
If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.
-----=====##### LINKS #####=====-----
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))
People who rely on spy-phones for organizing protests have it coming anyway.
Snowden has demonstrated that a traitor can be a hero
No, he demonstrated that a hero will be called a traitor by the actual traitors he exposed.
traitor (noun) One who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country.
When did he betray USA? When he exposed massive surveillance, which is almost certainly unconstitutional? When he exposed the fact that NSA is operating without any practical oversight? Or the fact that most (if not all) of the Congress has no right to know whether they are being spied on? Or the fact that the highest NSA officials lied, and continue to lie under oath? He broke a low, granted. That makes him a criminal, not automatically a traitor. And in this instance, it also makes him a hero, since the law he broke is oppressive and should have never been on the books.
evolution of DNA predates Earth by 6 billion years
This fascinating article makes it look quite possible, if not plausible. Seriously good read, and I am not a biologist.
We need to be careful not to praise the acts only because the results were good.
In this case, however, the laws he broke are oppressive: something you forgot to mention. The reason he cannot return is because USA does not have sufficient whistle-blowing protections. Should a citizen be able to report an illegal activity and a gross abuse of power, regardless of the classification of relevant documents? In a democratic society, it should be the citizen's duty, and an activity protected by the law. So we need to be careful to give Snowden praise he deserves for bringing our attention both to the illegal activities, and to the sad state of our legal system.
Let me google it for you
Thanks! Indeed, it's almost word for word:
1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.
But unlike UDHR, this is merely lip service. They give it with one hand, and with the other hand they take it away completely. If a state gives out exclusive distribution rights, then third parties have the right to censor any kind of sharing (3a). Anything but pure flattery can be construed as disrespecting someone's reputation (3a). Anything at all can and have been construed as threatening national security: in particular, any kind of political speech (3b). Sadly, this document does nothing to protect the right to freedom of expression.
UDHR article 19:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Since enforcing copyright against people who share information online non-commercially is clearly a violation of a human right according to UDHR, to which UK is a signatory, how about throwing copyright enforcers in jail instead? How long is the public going to put up with this oppression?
AdblockPlus already sold out to advertizers.
Please, stop spreading the myth of "standard codec" and "quality". Anything will be a standard if it is crammed down the people's throats. As for quality, please. All Web video is shit. Talking about the differences in "quality" between mp4, theora, and webm is like talking about the shades of dung. 5 minute videos of cats playing piano and girls masturbating produce exactly the same effect, no matter the codec. On a smartphone screen too. Give me a break. Feeding the patent mafia, who are basically censoring Wikipedia for millions of users, is a much bigger issue than any subjective difference in video quality. Think it through. Thanks to patents, copyrights, and non-free software, many spy-phone users can't see the videos at all, and you keep talking about a marginal improvement in "quality"?
If this device is fully free and open, then it can obviously spoof every one of its IDs, and provide a strong defense against location tracking (although not perfect, if one wants to jump from tower to tower while keeping the IP connection intact). The problem, as you can see, is not just with the device, but with the cellular providers, who forbid anonymous users. So if this phone can use the cellular network in USA, then it automatically will have to be non-free, and the whole thing is a scam. In particular, their claims of privacy and security would be straight-up lies. If it does not, however, use the towers (wifi only), then it has a chance of being true to its claimed purpose.
and ... open source... so useful parts can be reviewed and ported to populars android mods
This is not the main reason why it should be open source, nor is "open source" enough, unless we are using a definition compatible with the free software definition. In fact, both hardware and software should be free, documented, and open in order to justify the basic security and privacy claims the manufacturer is making.
As for "open source", the freedom to distribute modified copies (which is not clearly implied) is paramount to anything aspiring to be secure. If a bug is discovered, and a patch is available, the software will remain insecure if the authorized distributor refuses to apply the patch. Free software does not have this problem.
As for the order of your list, all the things you named are very useful indeed, but they are not worth crap unless the entire thing is free software, and the hardware is open and certified by third parties without special interests. One binary blob makes all security and privacy claims a lie, plain and simple. Not an honest mistake, not a misunderstanding: these people surely understand security, so when they start selling "secure" binary blobs, they will be lying through their teeth.
I dunno about voice calls, but messaging, at least, can be Torified, and that would be a much tougher nut to crack.
Oh, he understands everything. He just hates that people are free to express themselves in ways not approved by the ruling elite.
+ 10% more pink on everything. Can't go wrong with pink.
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/02/image/
Stop with space.com slashvertisements already, it's nauseating.
space.com are leeches who are not competent enough to link to the frigging Hubble site. You know, the very minimum of what one can do to credit the work of the people who actually built the space telescope, took these amazing pictures, processed them, and brought them to the masses.
A car that respects the owner's freedom would give full access to the odometer, so the scheme you describe will be too easy to cheat. Instead, it may be necessary to apply the same flat rate to all non-commercial vehicles, and make commercial operators self-report, keeping them honest with hefty fines when they are found cheating.
I am sure there will be willing mechanics, and ways to rip out, disconnect, or fry all of the equipment that either records or transmits data. Free-software cars should also be forthcoming, even if we have to wait another 10 years. After all, they could make cars without software at all, so they should be able to make it with free software only, even if it's behind the curve.
Some folks trust too much
Woe if one is a statesman
Shame on you, Vermont
Or you could just say: "I am 75."
Obviously, you haven't tried not reading it, or you would know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Here's my cure: listen to some Bach, put a drawing of Escher on the wall, and pick up a copy of Enderton's Logic.