And I'll have a dose of common sense. Don't want your privacy 'invaded', don't buy the damn watch, don't use speedpass, don't use ez-pass, don't use credit cards, don't use a bank account. My message to all of you knee jerk "invasion of privacy" people is this: don't stop those of us (who clearly don't care for privacy) who want to use these products from using them. If you don't want to make things easier, you don't have to.
Biometrics are used under the presumption that an employe[e] will cheat clock[ing] in and out.
And so are a bunch of other workplace procedures that you might do every day. Or you may not even know about them, depending on the size of your employer.
I find it very offensive that I have to take the risk of having my biometric data on some database that can at any time be compromised
This is such a red herring. Do you do any online shopping? Electronic banking? Furthermore, there's absolutely no reason why biometric data could not be stored securely. Reader reads in your palm, converts it to whatever electronic format it uses, and then hashes that, and compares it against a value in a database. Voila. Your hand data is never transmitted or stored. This is the same procedure that is used by almost every serious password system. Could someone mis-design the system, such that it was insecure? Sure. That can happen anywhere.
You have collected electronic data that can now be shared if the employer desires to do so.
How do you think that timecard gets turned into a paycheck? Magic? No. It is entered or scanned into a computer, making it electronic.
I am not saying that this will happen, but it could, and that is enough to want me to start worrying about my privacy.
If we all were against something that had a chance of 'invading' our privacy, we wouldn't have banking, credit cards, cell phones, the internet, etc. I'm all for stopping abuses of privacy, but let's wait until there's at least the possibility of it happening first. Your ridiculous argument hinges on the idea that everyone uses hand scanners, everywhere, and that they are tied into a central system to track everyone. In your situation, basic constitutional rights would have to be suspended or removed. Do you really think this is a possibility? Don't bother mentioning the PATRIOT act. I'm not defending PATRIOT, but it comes no where near to what you are talking about.
You're taking polls at face value 11 months before the general election, and 6 months before the democratic nominee is actually nominated. You can't say "Today he would be re-elected". That's just a disingenuous statement. If there was going to be an election tomorrow with no challenger nominated by the opposition, no campaign, no debates, sure, of course he'd win. However, that's not how things are done.
if it gives Americans (and the West generally) confidence back in themselves, their civilization and it's values then it's a thoroughly good thing... So, if the USA is about to shake itself out of it's introspective, somewhat paranoid, behaviour and regain it's confidence and enterprise there's only one thing to say...
Sadly, I don't think that these things are as mutually exclusive as you believe. We could certainly go on oppressing our citizens and pissing off the rest of the world while going to Mars. Remember, the Soviet Union had a space program, and so does China, and they aren't exactly model countries.
Actually, with the Fastow deal, it appears that the gov't is going to start going after Lay and a few others who have to date appeared to come through unscathed.
I have this option set to on, but cannot reproduce your results. This may be due to the firewall here, but based on what I've been reading, that shouldn't be affecting things.
Having more information, this does seem to be a problem, but I cannot reproduce it (I have the offending option on), possibly due to the firewall here.
Compatibility mode exists in Windows 2000, unless you meant to imply that compatibility mode works better in XP. I have not used it in XP and cannot comment on that, but have had a low rate of success using it in win2k.
India has more people than the US, so, all other things being equal, there should be more Steve Jobses in India than the US. However, you imply the opposite. Why? Do you mean to imply that entreprenurial spirit does not exist as much in India as it does here? If so, why are many small business owners, at least in my area, Indian? Do you mean to imply that Indians are somehow less capable or educated than Americans? If that were true, we wouldn't be offshoring so much work to them at such a pace, and Indian business owners here would not be as successful. Did we also forget that India has nuclear weapons? They are not some backwater country, and have many intelligent and educated people. So what is it?
There's a bias in many comments on this issue. There is the idea that ALL factory jobs are mindless and can be done by monkeys. This simply isn't true. While there obviously are assembly-line type jobs which are very simple, there are many factory jobs which do not require a college degree, but still require technical knowledge that comes largely from experience, and is not taught in a few minutes.
While my experience is not going to represent every factory, I have worked in a factory, on the floor. It really opened my eyes to a world which I had previously known only through stereotypes and the media.
Go into a liquor store and buy a lot of booze, like several hundred dollars worth. Then watch the clerk reject your sale. It won't happen.
Freshman year in college we used the most ridiculous out of state fake ID to buy alcohol, and the stores always allowed it because we were buying so much booze.
Do we need features in Photoshop to prevent copying of driver's licences and other IDs to stop this problem?
No, the solution is simple. Clerks need to actively check large bills and IDs to verify they are authentic. Security features exist on all monies and IDs to do this, but the clerks are simply too lazy to check, or don't want to jeopardize a sale. There's no reason to burden everyone, when all you need to do is burden the people accepting monies/IDs. This, like many other problems in our society, is simply a matter of enforcing the existing regulations, not adding more regulations.
Even in the case of the airline bailout, everyone knew that many of those companies were headed for the crapper anyway.
Which proves the OPs point that 9/11 has been used as a scapegoat! If 'everyone' knew that the airlines were tanking anyway, why did they approve massive subsidy?
rational? irrational? what do these words mean. one can rationalize just about anything, if they try hard enough. why do we always have to hate someone?
The argument "but x people die every day doing y" is used to illustrate how we can better spend our money. 3,000 people died on 9/11 and we have spent billions to attempt to prevent a similar attack. However, many more people die every day from other causes. Why are we not spending billions to prevent that? The answer is that, as a society, we value property over life. On 9/11, a vast amount of material possession was lost (both directly and indirectly), and that is what the government is attempting to ensure does not occur again. Because the government does not come right out and say this, but clouds their actions as 'protecting americans' (to be fair, it is protection. however it is always framed as a personal protection, not economic protection), it makes some people question whether it is really worth the money. When you look at the whole picture, material and economic concerns included, it is worth the money.
Back then the FBI was pretty limited on what it could do about a "suspected al Qaeda member".
That's a load of revisionist crap. They could have gotten anything they needed from the FISA court. Most of the PATRIOT act was already available to law enforcement, through the FISA court. The PATRIOT act, for the most part, only removed the FISA court from the equation, in the name of 'fighting terrorism'.
The FISA court is a secret court which approves wiretaps and other warrants/subpoenas on matters of national security and foreign intelligence. The FISA court was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Slashdot Mirror
And I'll have a dose of common sense. Don't want your privacy 'invaded', don't buy the damn watch, don't use speedpass, don't use ez-pass, don't use credit cards, don't use a bank account. My message to all of you knee jerk "invasion of privacy" people is this: don't stop those of us (who clearly don't care for privacy) who want to use these products from using them. If you don't want to make things easier, you don't have to.
Biometrics are used under the presumption that an employe[e] will cheat clock[ing] in and out.
And so are a bunch of other workplace procedures that you might do every day. Or you may not even know about them, depending on the size of your employer.
I find it very offensive that I have to take the risk of having my biometric data on some database that can at any time be compromised
This is such a red herring. Do you do any online shopping? Electronic banking? Furthermore, there's absolutely no reason why biometric data could not be stored securely. Reader reads in your palm, converts it to whatever electronic format it uses, and then hashes that, and compares it against a value in a database. Voila. Your hand data is never transmitted or stored. This is the same procedure that is used by almost every serious password system. Could someone mis-design the system, such that it was insecure? Sure. That can happen anywhere.
You have collected electronic data that can now be shared if the employer desires to do so.
How do you think that timecard gets turned into a paycheck? Magic? No. It is entered or scanned into a computer, making it electronic.
I am not saying that this will happen, but it could, and that is enough to want me to start worrying about my privacy.
If we all were against something that had a chance of 'invading' our privacy, we wouldn't have banking, credit cards, cell phones, the internet, etc. I'm all for stopping abuses of privacy, but let's wait until there's at least the possibility of it happening first. Your ridiculous argument hinges on the idea that everyone uses hand scanners, everywhere, and that they are tied into a central system to track everyone. In your situation, basic constitutional rights would have to be suspended or removed. Do you really think this is a possibility? Don't bother mentioning the PATRIOT act. I'm not defending PATRIOT, but it comes no where near to what you are talking about.
you may not want to go back to McDonald's again. I haven't gone back. But that's because their food tastes like crap.
So you went to McDonald's until you read the book, and then you realized you didn't like the taste of the food, and stopped going?
You imply that Canada doesn't have taxes and regulations. LOL
There was a story on this a few months ago. Some casinos are instituting computer systems using the cameras to track the cards.
Bush doesn't need...the political benefit.
You're taking polls at face value 11 months before the general election, and 6 months before the democratic nominee is actually nominated. You can't say "Today he would be re-elected". That's just a disingenuous statement. If there was going to be an election tomorrow with no challenger nominated by the opposition, no campaign, no debates, sure, of course he'd win. However, that's not how things are done.
if it gives Americans (and the West generally) confidence back in themselves, their civilization and it's values then it's a thoroughly good thing... So, if the USA is about to shake itself out of it's introspective, somewhat paranoid, behaviour and regain it's confidence and enterprise there's only one thing to say...
Sadly, I don't think that these things are as mutually exclusive as you believe. We could certainly go on oppressing our citizens and pissing off the rest of the world while going to Mars. Remember, the Soviet Union had a space program, and so does China, and they aren't exactly model countries.
This isn't an election-year ploy for the simple reason that Bush is not running for election yet.
Take any presidential polisci course. The campaign never ends when you're a first term president.
Actually, with the Fastow deal, it appears that the gov't is going to start going after Lay and a few others who have to date appeared to come through unscathed.
I have this option set to on, but cannot reproduce your results. This may be due to the firewall here, but based on what I've been reading, that shouldn't be affecting things.
Having more information, this does seem to be a problem, but I cannot reproduce it (I have the offending option on), possibly due to the firewall here.
I've never heard of this, and wouldn't trust only one post on slashdot to prove it to me, like you just did.
Compatibility mode exists in Windows 2000, unless you meant to imply that compatibility mode works better in XP. I have not used it in XP and cannot comment on that, but have had a low rate of success using it in win2k.
Mine is spread around all over the place-in other words, I'm not using P2P apps or downloading a whole lot of iso images via FTP.
That is just a brilliant analogy for Slashdot, well done.
Which isn't really saying much, given the quality of most analogies here (OP most definitely included!!)
India has more people than the US, so, all other things being equal, there should be more Steve Jobses in India than the US. However, you imply the opposite. Why? Do you mean to imply that entreprenurial spirit does not exist as much in India as it does here? If so, why are many small business owners, at least in my area, Indian? Do you mean to imply that Indians are somehow less capable or educated than Americans? If that were true, we wouldn't be offshoring so much work to them at such a pace, and Indian business owners here would not be as successful. Did we also forget that India has nuclear weapons? They are not some backwater country, and have many intelligent and educated people. So what is it?
There's a bias in many comments on this issue. There is the idea that ALL factory jobs are mindless and can be done by monkeys. This simply isn't true. While there obviously are assembly-line type jobs which are very simple, there are many factory jobs which do not require a college degree, but still require technical knowledge that comes largely from experience, and is not taught in a few minutes.
While my experience is not going to represent every factory, I have worked in a factory, on the floor. It really opened my eyes to a world which I had previously known only through stereotypes and the media.
Every capitalist economy, yes...
Go into a liquor store and buy a lot of booze, like several hundred dollars worth. Then watch the clerk reject your sale. It won't happen.
Freshman year in college we used the most ridiculous out of state fake ID to buy alcohol, and the stores always allowed it because we were buying so much booze.
Do we need features in Photoshop to prevent copying of driver's licences and other IDs to stop this problem?
No, the solution is simple. Clerks need to actively check large bills and IDs to verify they are authentic. Security features exist on all monies and IDs to do this, but the clerks are simply too lazy to check, or don't want to jeopardize a sale. There's no reason to burden everyone, when all you need to do is burden the people accepting monies/IDs. This, like many other problems in our society, is simply a matter of enforcing the existing regulations, not adding more regulations.
Even in the case of the airline bailout, everyone knew that many of those companies were headed for the crapper anyway.
Which proves the OPs point that 9/11 has been used as a scapegoat! If 'everyone' knew that the airlines were tanking anyway, why did they approve massive subsidy?
rational? irrational? what do these words mean. one can rationalize just about anything, if they try hard enough. why do we always have to hate someone?
The argument "but x people die every day doing y" is used to illustrate how we can better spend our money. 3,000 people died on 9/11 and we have spent billions to attempt to prevent a similar attack. However, many more people die every day from other causes. Why are we not spending billions to prevent that? The answer is that, as a society, we value property over life. On 9/11, a vast amount of material possession was lost (both directly and indirectly), and that is what the government is attempting to ensure does not occur again. Because the government does not come right out and say this, but clouds their actions as 'protecting americans' (to be fair, it is protection. however it is always framed as a personal protection, not economic protection), it makes some people question whether it is really worth the money. When you look at the whole picture, material and economic concerns included, it is worth the money.
Back then the FBI was pretty limited on what it could do about a "suspected al Qaeda member".
That's a load of revisionist crap. They could have gotten anything they needed from the FISA court. Most of the PATRIOT act was already available to law enforcement, through the FISA court. The PATRIOT act, for the most part, only removed the FISA court from the equation, in the name of 'fighting terrorism'.
The FISA court is a secret court which approves wiretaps and other warrants/subpoenas on matters of national security and foreign intelligence. The FISA court was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
I use a Sony TV. From 1988. Works great and still has a crisper picture than many newer TVs (trinitron, of course).