Drugs companies love their "designer drugs" because they are very profitable - I understand that they are protected by law, and the inventor of the designer drug can reserve all rights if they want to.
I think I am right in saying that any chemical that occurs in nature isn't protected in the same way, so if a natural chemical is found to be a very effective drug there is nothing to stop Pfizer making it into pills and selling it, but there is also nothing stopping $FAR_EASTERN_DRUG_CO producing it (for less than Pfizer) and selling it. Nor is their anything stopping individuals producing the drug (apart from prohibition laws), effectively bypassing the whole drugs industry.
Anything that potentially reduces profitability of an industry will be fodder for lobbiests.
Of course, chemicals very similar to those found in nature but that do not occur in nature can be protected by law. cf Aspirin and salicylic acid, though this is an example a few hundred years old now!
Ah yes, VenomFangX - another certifiable zealot. I've always wondered - if his religion is so great and wonderful, why does he feel it necessary to resort to such underhanded tactics? It has been around for more than two thousand years, and will certainly survive without him.
Religion is utterly based on underhand tactics - the indoctrination of children, threats of eternal damnation for not doing or questioning what authority says etc..
Religion may out-survive one individual zealot, but it certainly will not survive without people like him.
You know what would have really sorted you out? A big fat fucking spliff, or a hit from the bong </Cypress Hill>.
If I drink tea (I've never liked coffee) after about 10pm, there is no way I will fall asleep until gone midnight - the caffeine gives me enough of a kick to stop me dropping off. But if I am stoned then I can guzzle as much caffeine as I like and sleep ain't a problem.
The weed would have helped settle your stomach too.
But THC ain't patentable, so it stays illegal. And corn makes growers a lot of money, even though hemp is a better source for biofuel. And the wood-pulp based paper industry is happy with its methods, even though canvas lasts hundreds of years and doesn't go yellow. And who needs natural fibres when they're making money from artificial fibres made from oil.
The best schedule I ever worked was 12 hour days. I'd work 3 days one week, and 4 days the next week. I always had either 3 or 4 days off.
That reminds me of an old job where the management fucked up my holiday time, but in my favour. I got 23 days a year off, and I knew I had used 20+ days because I had been keeping my own records. The days off had to be used by the end of the year, and at the start of November my manager told me I had a lot of holiday still to use. Of course, I kept schtum about my records, and proceeded to book off every Monday in November and December, and every other Friday.
Alternating 3 and 4 day working-weeks for 2 months with no Mondays. It was fucking sweet.
The joke of an article simply refers to "terror mails" sent before the bombings. Are they saying that the bombings were planned via email through these open APs?
If so, then I feel that the police's actions give insight as to their real drives: get a conviction, secure that pay-rise and promotion. If an AP is open it gives a pretty good defence to the owner, but if it is secure then that defence may not fly. The police get a successful conviction, even though it might be totally the wrong person.
If you don't think that law enforcement will care more for conviction than solving a terrorist atrocity then just take a look at the Birmingham pub bombings.
It's a usual knee jerk reaction - the police have to be seen to be doing something, but I dunno how closing of open APs will stop terrorist actions. Generally, if you want to stop terrorism you need to stop pissing off the people bombing you.
No, the messages "can last upwards of three minutes". So it could be anything from a GPS triggered "McDonalds, turn left now!!!!11!!" to an hour long audio-infomercial selling fuck knows what.
There is no limit to the messages, and the marketing-speak phrases it so that people will most likely think that the alerts are limited. Just like you did. To be honest though, the article is nothing more than a press release pretending to be news..... much like most of the news these days.
Maybe it was some kind of phishing thing? Yeah, I know how that sounds, but from what you said even if digg did update their system, you were banned anyway so why would you get a mail? Why would they update their dbase if you were banned?
So the scammers try to phish some digg accounts. The people that do fall for that phishing attempt are then sent a real phising attempt - one for the person's online bank details.
I have a merchant credit card account for V,MC,D, you know the telephone swipe box that sits on the store counter.
It's pretty easy for the merchant, BestBuy whoever, to get your name and address from it.
And this is one of the reasons I always use cash. I do have a debit card, but it'll only get used in an emergency. Even then I'll probably claim I don't know the PIN so that I can sign instead.
Samsung asked BestBuy to pass on the update to whoever purchased the SKU. It's a tremendous courtesy, actually.
Well, yes you could see it as a courtesy, but it won't be. A business never ever does anything unless it thinks it will be benefitting from the action. This includes charitable contributions - the cost there will be seen as buying good will, or some other BS.
There was probably some kind of contractual obligation to send out these disks, but why the keenness to make sure the user's players were up to date? I can't imagine that Bestbuy or Samsung want to add features to the players, as if the players are lacking the user might buy a new one instead. I am guessing that the update is DRM updates... something like the ability for the player to identify copied disks, or maybe blacklisted keys or something.
There is no privacy. Get over it.
Well, there are various laws in various countries that try and give people rights to privacy, but like all rights they have to be continually defended. It doesn't help that penises like you make statements like that.... you might not care about your privacy and are willing to give it away, but when you do that you are often giving away others' privacy too.
yes but how would an IP address help?, an IP address barely corresponds to a nearby town, much less a person. I think their address/phone number would be alot more useful
I guess they note the IP just in case they get something like the httpd logs from forums.terroristsr.us [1], and they can just correlate posts about waging holy jihad on the infadels against recent travellers.
Of course, they don't need the httpd logs, they can just just cross reference it with the NSA's records of who surfed where and when.
[1] heh, terroristsr.us looks like it doesn't exist, wonder how good it'd look as my email address on my CV[2]? At least if I get a job with that email address I know the employer has a sense of humour.
Heh - you moved to a much more repressive country. The UK probably already has thousands of pictures of you. Good luck getting those or any other info from the government there.
Oh, we have a freedom of information act too, but it has a rule that's a bit of a pain.... data holders are allowed to charge a fee to get copies of what they have on you. It's usually a tenner or so. With so many cameras and businesses/organisations/state depts. with data about you you'd be bankrupted to get copies of it all though!
Can any clarify if they say they want money for your record they are indirectly confirming they do have something about you? If so, can you tell them just to delete it and that you don't want a copy, hence dodging the cost?
Most of the free TV sites won't work with NoScript enabled.
I dunno what you mean... thepiratebay.org works fine without JS. There is one torrent site that tries to stick an ad in your face before getting the.torrent, but I just close their tab when I end up there.
And if you think I shouldn't be pirating, well I think that the people who want to distribute this media should do it in a way I don't find horrible, and little crappy flash players are exactly that. If I want to consume media on someone elses term's I'll watch TV.
Also I've found bankofamerica.com, chase.com, and discovercard.com don't work.
If you are their customer, then give them some seriously inflamatory feedback, and explain that JS isn't needed, and just tends to open up security holes, for both the customer and bank. Tell them that you are seriously considering taking your business to $COMPETITOR because their site doesn't require such nonsense, which you interpret as $COMPETITOR taking security seriously.
Another side effect is that as my "whitelist" surpassed one thousand listings, my Firefox ate more memory and was running more and more slowly. So I decided to turn off Noscript/Adblock. The slowdown was more annoying than the ads.
The simple solution is to not use the whitelist then;)
I'll agree that a large adblock filter list does noticable hit performance, but in my expirience letting the ads load is slower.
I currently have 5 extensions installed that do things based on the URL I'm looking at or fetching: Foxyproxy (regexp rules to decide whether stuff should load through TOR or not), RefControl (a referer modifier), Adblock (with an 18.1K filterset), NoScript, and a cookie manager. Even with 5 things all trying to make decisions at once about what should be going on I still find it faster than adverts. The slow down I get is that the browser tends to lock up for a second or less when a new page loads, but there's never a delay for ad servers or hitbox or whoever.
Something that could help mitigate the consequences of things like this in future is something that I have been looking for for quite a while now.... a FF extension that will automatically save all the contents of all submitted forms.
FF already (mainly annoyingly) saves some of what gets entered into forms, but it won't save this rant, for instance. It'll save every possible typo varient of an email address that you might enter, and offer you the typos until the end of time, but the content you might want again in the future? Oh no.
Has anyone seen an extension like this? Or know of an extension that may have this feaure?
Yes there is - the caution you receive when arrested in the UK is as follows:
"You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court, anything you do say may be given in evidence."
They will also ask you if you understand this. If you ever get asked, say no, you don't understand. That way, anything you say cannot be used to build a case against you. They will go blue in the face trying to get you to agree, because they can't really do much with you if you don't say yes, you understand.
Once you've had a big row with the police, and you're being pepper sprayed and tasered, ask to speak to a solicitor. Always speak to the solicitor, no matter how minor the offence you've been nicked for.
I hate it how people add disclaimers to posts, so I'll phrase this as a question. Did you know I know fuck all about the law and shit, and am never going to be legally qualified in any way?;)
I think in situations like this, the attack lawyers start on the hobiests and little guys first as part of a bigger plan, or just readiness for if the fight gets big.
If they went straight after Intel then Intel would speak to its vast army of lawyers who are already on the staff (just like all big corps.). Those lawyers would soon find (for example - IANAL) that netbook is pretty generic and Psion haven't been protecting their trademark for years. Basically, the Intel lawyers would be able to put up a fight that will cost Psion money and they could lose totally too.
If Psion go for a few small guys, then the chances of them just submitted are much higher. If Psion then goes after Intel, Psion at least has some examples of them successfully defending their trademark. Psion would argue that the capitulation of the little guy was because the big guy was correct in his assertion of the trademark, and not of course because small-time hobbiests can't afford nor want to waste time defending their use of what they thought was just a portmanteau of network (or internet) and notebook.
For about a year or so I have been sending all my Googling through TOR (using Foxyproxy and a rule) as I do not like to be tracked, trended or advertised at, but it seems that Google are clamping down on people doing anonymous searches, under the old guise of blaming the end user and viruses etc. on their computer.
The problem is this. If you do a Google search through TOR, there is a very high chance you will get redirected to sorry.google.com and get a page back entitled "403 Forbidden" saying:
Google
Error
We're sorry...... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spy ware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spy ware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
If you're continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser's online support centre.
We apologise for the inconvenience and hope we'll see you again on Google.
When I started using Google through TOR it would work most of the time, with only the occasional one of these. Then the situation got better, as Google added a captcha to the page, so you could prove you were human and it would give you the results even though the freqency of the 403 went up. Then the capthca got rarer, and now I never see it, but get the 403 page near constantly. To work around the issue I have to tell my TOR daemon to create a new circuit, so I get a new exit node which might not be flooding Google as much. This obviously puts undue strain on the TOR network too.
The Google apologists will be queing up no doubt to tell me that I am getting this page because I am using TOR and all the searches appear to Google to come from a few IPs, so I should use Google directly. And whilst I am there I should forget about privacy and use a Google account all the time! All I can say is that Google's behaviour in reaction to searches from TOR is they appear to have made it harder for TOR users to use Google (do no evil, ha!), as 1) it used to work most of the time 2) TOR exit nodes are publicly known, so Google could easily whitelist those IPs 3) The captcha has gone away completely 4) the frequency of this error has shot up. I sometimes need to tell TOR to recreate the circuit over 5 times before I get an exit node that Google are serving.
I have also filled in feedback on the Google site on numerous occasions to try and get them to address the Googling through TOR issue, but I feel that they have just then clamped down on the untrackable people using TOR.
Google are very aggressive about trying to get info on their users, and it has now passed the point where they have decided that their business interests are important than people's anonymity. Google stopped being cool in my book a while ago, and these days they are utter bastards, who happen to operate the best search engine.
Where I live at the moment we have Zen's old 512k/256k ADSL package. This has no data limit, and Zen too have pestered us to change to their limited 8meg packages.
Based on a 365.25 day year, and a month that is a 12th of that, with my 512k account I can theorhetically transfer 160.5 gigabytes/month down, 80.3 gigabytes/month up.
Zen's highest download limit on their current 8meg consumer package is 50gig.... which works out at an average speed over a month of 19.9k/sec down.
You and I are both on an ISP reselling BT wholesale, and BT basically charge our ISP by the byte. I think they sell their bandwidth in chunks to the ISPs, but this is why most ISPs have some kind of transfer limit: it would be massively uneconomical for them to have a user with 8meg download 2.5 terabytes in a month, or even a significant fraction of that.
I've been looking at O2's broadband but would appreciate any suggestions for high bandwidth users!*:o)
A mate is on 24meg Bethere (the same as o2, AFAIK) and he has no download limit. They are a LLU ISP, so he doesn't have any services from BT.
A few months ago he bought a 1080p TV, and has a PC connected to it, so you can imagine how much torrenting has been happening! And not a peep from his ISP about the data transfers. The Bebox (DSL modem/router) they provide seems to have freezing issues when there's lots of torrents running, and it also periodically hangs with normal geek-level usage (once a week or two), but this is the case with most consumer grade routers in my expirience.
Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA.
In-q-tel's site is http://www.iqt.org./ I think the CIA is even bigger and better funded than you thought!
Yeah, I noticed that the requirements screamed computers, and as my passport needed renewing I made sure I took some steps to distrupt what might be planned (or thought up in the future by a politician).
There are a couple of documents for the passport photos that the government publish: One for the users and one for the photographers. The photographers doc mentions that black and white pictures are still allowed. When I renewed my passport I hadn't had a haircut or shave for 6 months, and I got the photo place to do me black and white prints rather than colour, and on the condition they also give me a copy of the file from the digital camera.
Having a copy of the digital file means that any future photos of me that are needed by authority will all get exactly the same black and white photo that is in my electronic passport that looks like it was taken in the 1970s. Computers can't tell my eye colour, and if comparisons are made between different photos of me in the future there will be 0 differences.... so the photos can't be used to build up some "map" of me that might be as accurate as for other people. I think I will even give this saved jpeg to future employers for work ID cards..... no need for my national insurance number to be tied to another digital photo. All it takes is a change of legislation and employers could easily have to supply more employee info to the government.
It does seem to have become a Slashdot theme of late.
Something I've noticed though is that the vast majority of the "horrific loss of privacy in Britain" stories refer to proposed ideas, often by people low down in their government whose job it is to think up new ideas (whether good or - as is most often the case - bad) but few of which have yet shown any real signs of actually being implemented.
The current UK government loves its PR and spin, and seems to have a technique for breaking bad news to the public.
Far too often the government has a "leak" of a proposed new scheme, to let the press have a field day bitching about it (and people on internet forums, and discussions in the pub). There will then usually be a statement from a minister or someone, who will turn a around and say "it was a leak, so it wasn't official policy, what we want to do only XYZ to fight terror/protect the children/fight organised crime", where XYZ is a slightly watered down version of the original proposal. The press and idiots then will then be a lot more accepting of the proposal, because they feel they have "won" in some way, whereas infact there has still been a further erosion of liberty.
So we get discussions on/. about proposed plans rather than actual new laws because it looks to be (from the government's point of view) a good way to get nasty plans accepted by the public.
One of the main reasons I use NoScript is to deal with inconsistent behaviour across different websites. Javascript is used for all sorts of menus, pointless sliding transitions and fucking floating layer things that don't help with navigating a site. The new interface here on slashdot is like that... the floating box thing is very annoying, the preferences are now a nighmare, and the whole site is much slower to use if I allow JS. I don't install flash or Java for much the same reasons, to avoid annoyances. Many of these JS-heavy sites also don't work as the user expects if you try to load stuff in new tabs, with a ctrl-click.
There are also attempts by webmasters to use JS as some kind of crude DRM, which I don't fancy engaging with. I use NoScript also to stop other annoyances online, like site's wanting to popup crappy little boxes with a just a small graphic or text in.... or when you go to a domain, click some link to get into the site, and with JS they may choose to pop-up a box of a certain (fixed) size, with no address bar etc.. No thanks, my computer, I view your site how I want. If you want to make content that can only be viewed how the maker wants, go make a fucking TV programme.
What is absurd is to allow code from any old advertiser or third party to be run on your computer. The advertising networks have been targets on the past for serving malware, so by avoiding all advertising "content" you reduce the risk to yourself on all sites.
This isn't about real security..... VbV, and similar systems is about protecting the finacial institutions from the costs of fraud, by shifting the liability to the customer. It is about the security of banks' future profits.
As I understand it, with Verified by Visa you create a password for your card. When you use your card, the vendor's site sends you to a Visa/your bank controlled domain to check the password (in an iframe, so you can't actually see the domain, no easily check the certificate). The idea is that only the card holder knows the password, and part of the agreement when signing up to VbV will be a promise that you will not disclose the password, and any transaction that uses the password will be assumed to have been approved by the card holder. Of course, the agreement is long and written in legalese, so the banks know most customers will not read it, and if they did they probably wouldn't understand it.
Well, fuck that. This is just the banks being greedy... obviously the merchant fees aren't enough to keep the shareholders happy so "costs" have to be cut in other ways. So by wriggling out of some more responsibility for fraud (like has been done with the chip and pin system), the banks can make even more money.
I recommend that anyone who gets presented with verified by visa to not sign up at all, and to stop using it immediately if you have signed up to it. Get a new card, or a new bank to avoid it in the future.
NoScript on my install of FF has the VbV domains marked as untrusted, and I think I have set up blunt adblock filters to stop anything at all being loaded to do with VbV. Generally, surfing without javascript seems to stop VbV from working in the first place though.
Of course, some banks are now pressuring people to sign up to VbV, by using tactics of annoyance (disabling cards and shouting "fraud prevention"), which will work on most people....
By contrast, when my BMW says "reserve", 50 miles to go, you in fact have 50 miles to go. So as the computer says "0", the engine will sputter and die.
By contrast, one of work's Vauxhalls (UK part of GM) that I was using said it had 13 miles of fuel left, and promptly spluttered to a halt when I started away from some traffic lights, and wouldn't restart until it was filled up.
just like car manufacturers are telling you that driving an SUV is good for your safety while they make them with cheap truck chassis that are less maneuverable and do not reduce the impact of a collision nearly as much as a car chassis.
Based on some of the replies in this thread, the manufacturers propaganda is working well. Suckers seem to be lining up to defend their death trap SUVs.
But your post has been modded funny, no doubt as an attempt by someone who has a bad case of buyers-remorse that they can't admit to, to attempt to undermine your insight by getting your post labelled funny.
I bet the crack-addled moderator likes the laughter track on "comedy" like Friends because it tells him when he should be laughing. So he projects this logic onto others, and cleverly comes up with modding you funny so the other SUV owners will think you were joking rather than being serious.
No doubt I'll get a smack for this... better leave the karma bonus on so they have to waste more mod points...
Slashdot Mirror
Corporations have no vote, why do corporations can contribute?
Whatever it's for, it doesn't look like it goes towards the education system.
It was a gross simplification.
Drugs companies love their "designer drugs" because they are very profitable - I understand that they are protected by law, and the inventor of the designer drug can reserve all rights if they want to.
I think I am right in saying that any chemical that occurs in nature isn't protected in the same way, so if a natural chemical is found to be a very effective drug there is nothing to stop Pfizer making it into pills and selling it, but there is also nothing stopping $FAR_EASTERN_DRUG_CO producing it (for less than Pfizer) and selling it. Nor is their anything stopping individuals producing the drug (apart from prohibition laws), effectively bypassing the whole drugs industry.
Anything that potentially reduces profitability of an industry will be fodder for lobbiests.
Of course, chemicals very similar to those found in nature but that do not occur in nature can be protected by law. cf Aspirin and salicylic acid, though this is an example a few hundred years old now!
Ah yes, VenomFangX - another certifiable zealot. I've always wondered - if his religion is so great and wonderful, why does he feel it necessary to resort to such underhanded tactics? It has been around for more than two thousand years, and will certainly survive without him.
Religion is utterly based on underhand tactics - the indoctrination of children, threats of eternal damnation for not doing or questioning what authority says etc..
Religion may out-survive one individual zealot, but it certainly will not survive without people like him.
You know what would have really sorted you out? A big fat fucking spliff, or a hit from the bong </Cypress Hill>.
If I drink tea (I've never liked coffee) after about 10pm, there is no way I will fall asleep until gone midnight - the caffeine gives me enough of a kick to stop me dropping off. But if I am stoned then I can guzzle as much caffeine as I like and sleep ain't a problem.
The weed would have helped settle your stomach too.
But THC ain't patentable, so it stays illegal.
And corn makes growers a lot of money, even though hemp is a better source for biofuel.
And the wood-pulp based paper industry is happy with its methods, even though canvas lasts hundreds of years and doesn't go yellow.
And who needs natural fibres when they're making money from artificial fibres made from oil.
The best schedule I ever worked was 12 hour days. I'd work 3 days one week, and 4 days the next week. I always had either 3 or 4 days off.
That reminds me of an old job where the management fucked up my holiday time, but in my favour. I got 23 days a year off, and I knew I had used 20+ days because I had been keeping my own records. The days off had to be used by the end of the year, and at the start of November my manager told me I had a lot of holiday still to use. Of course, I kept schtum about my records, and proceeded to book off every Monday in November and December, and every other Friday.
Alternating 3 and 4 day working-weeks for 2 months with no Mondays. It was fucking sweet.
The joke of an article simply refers to "terror mails" sent before the bombings. Are they saying that the bombings were planned via email through these open APs?
If so, then I feel that the police's actions give insight as to their real drives: get a conviction, secure that pay-rise and promotion. If an AP is open it gives a pretty good defence to the owner, but if it is secure then that defence may not fly. The police get a successful conviction, even though it might be totally the wrong person.
If you don't think that law enforcement will care more for conviction than solving a terrorist atrocity then just take a look at the Birmingham pub bombings.
It's a usual knee jerk reaction - the police have to be seen to be doing something, but I dunno how closing of open APs will stop terrorist actions. Generally, if you want to stop terrorism you need to stop pissing off the people bombing you.
No, the messages "can last upwards of three minutes". So it could be anything from a GPS triggered "McDonalds, turn left now!!!!11!!" to an hour long audio-infomercial selling fuck knows what.
There is no limit to the messages, and the marketing-speak phrases it so that people will most likely think that the alerts are limited. Just like you did. To be honest though, the article is nothing more than a press release pretending to be news..... much like most of the news these days.
Lawn, off, etc.
Maybe it was some kind of phishing thing? Yeah, I know how that sounds, but from what you said even if digg did update their system, you were banned anyway so why would you get a mail? Why would they update their dbase if you were banned?
So the scammers try to phish some digg accounts. The people that do fall for that phishing attempt are then sent a real phising attempt - one for the person's online bank details.
I have a merchant credit card account for V,MC,D, you know the telephone swipe box that sits on the store counter.
It's pretty easy for the merchant, BestBuy whoever, to get your name and address from it.
And this is one of the reasons I always use cash. I do have a debit card, but it'll only get used in an emergency. Even then I'll probably claim I don't know the PIN so that I can sign instead.
Samsung asked BestBuy to pass on the update to whoever purchased the SKU. It's a tremendous courtesy, actually.
Well, yes you could see it as a courtesy, but it won't be. A business never ever does anything unless it thinks it will be benefitting from the action. This includes charitable contributions - the cost there will be seen as buying good will, or some other BS.
There was probably some kind of contractual obligation to send out these disks, but why the keenness to make sure the user's players were up to date? I can't imagine that Bestbuy or Samsung want to add features to the players, as if the players are lacking the user might buy a new one instead. I am guessing that the update is DRM updates... something like the ability for the player to identify copied disks, or maybe blacklisted keys or something.
There is no privacy. Get over it.
Well, there are various laws in various countries that try and give people rights to privacy, but like all rights they have to be continually defended. It doesn't help that penises like you make statements like that.... you might not care about your privacy and are willing to give it away, but when you do that you are often giving away others' privacy too.
yes but how would an IP address help?, an IP address barely corresponds to a nearby town, much less a person. I think their address/phone number would be alot more useful
I guess they note the IP just in case they get something like the httpd logs from forums.terroristsr.us [1], and they can just correlate posts about waging holy jihad on the infadels against recent travellers.
Of course, they don't need the httpd logs, they can just just cross reference it with the NSA's records of who surfed where and when.
[1] heh, terroristsr.us looks like it doesn't exist, wonder how good it'd look as my email address on my CV[2]? At least if I get a job with that email address I know the employer has a sense of humour.
[2] Resume in en-US.
Heh - you moved to a much more repressive country. The UK probably already has thousands of pictures of you. Good luck getting those or any other info from the government there.
Oh, we have a freedom of information act too, but it has a rule that's a bit of a pain.... data holders are allowed to charge a fee to get copies of what they have on you. It's usually a tenner or so. With so many cameras and businesses/organisations/state depts. with data about you you'd be bankrupted to get copies of it all though!
Can any clarify if they say they want money for your record they are indirectly confirming they do have something about you? If so, can you tell them just to delete it and that you don't want a copy, hence dodging the cost?
Most of the free TV sites won't work with NoScript enabled.
I dunno what you mean... thepiratebay.org works fine without JS. There is one torrent site that tries to stick an ad in your face before getting the .torrent, but I just close their tab when I end up there.
And if you think I shouldn't be pirating, well I think that the people who want to distribute this media should do it in a way I don't find horrible, and little crappy flash players are exactly that. If I want to consume media on someone elses term's I'll watch TV.
Also I've found bankofamerica.com, chase.com, and discovercard.com don't work.
If you are their customer, then give them some seriously inflamatory feedback, and explain that JS isn't needed, and just tends to open up security holes, for both the customer and bank. Tell them that you are seriously considering taking your business to $COMPETITOR because their site doesn't require such nonsense, which you interpret as $COMPETITOR taking security seriously.
Another side effect is that as my "whitelist" surpassed one thousand listings, my Firefox ate more memory and was running more and more slowly. So I decided to turn off Noscript/Adblock. The slowdown was more annoying than the ads.
The simple solution is to not use the whitelist then ;)
I'll agree that a large adblock filter list does noticable hit performance, but in my expirience letting the ads load is slower.
I currently have 5 extensions installed that do things based on the URL I'm looking at or fetching: Foxyproxy (regexp rules to decide whether stuff should load through TOR or not), RefControl (a referer modifier), Adblock (with an 18.1K filterset), NoScript, and a cookie manager. Even with 5 things all trying to make decisions at once about what should be going on I still find it faster than adverts. The slow down I get is that the browser tends to lock up for a second or less when a new page loads, but there's never a delay for ad servers or hitbox or whoever.
Something that could help mitigate the consequences of things like this in future is something that I have been looking for for quite a while now.... a FF extension that will automatically save all the contents of all submitted forms.
FF already (mainly annoyingly) saves some of what gets entered into forms, but it won't save this rant, for instance. It'll save every possible typo varient of an email address that you might enter, and offer you the typos until the end of time, but the content you might want again in the future? Oh no.
Has anyone seen an extension like this? Or know of an extension that may have this feaure?
Yes there is - the caution you receive when arrested in the UK is as follows:
"You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court, anything you do say may be given in evidence."
They will also ask you if you understand this. If you ever get asked, say no, you don't understand. That way, anything you say cannot be used to build a case against you. They will go blue in the face trying to get you to agree, because they can't really do much with you if you don't say yes, you understand.
Once you've had a big row with the police, and you're being pepper sprayed and tasered, ask to speak to a solicitor. Always speak to the solicitor, no matter how minor the offence you've been nicked for.
I hate it how people add disclaimers to posts, so I'll phrase this as a question. Did you know I know fuck all about the law and shit, and am never going to be legally qualified in any way? ;)
I think in situations like this, the attack lawyers start on the hobiests and little guys first as part of a bigger plan, or just readiness for if the fight gets big.
If they went straight after Intel then Intel would speak to its vast army of lawyers who are already on the staff (just like all big corps.). Those lawyers would soon find (for example - IANAL) that netbook is pretty generic and Psion haven't been protecting their trademark for years. Basically, the Intel lawyers would be able to put up a fight that will cost Psion money and they could lose totally too.
If Psion go for a few small guys, then the chances of them just submitted are much higher. If Psion then goes after Intel, Psion at least has some examples of them successfully defending their trademark. Psion would argue that the capitulation of the little guy was because the big guy was correct in his assertion of the trademark, and not of course because small-time hobbiests can't afford nor want to waste time defending their use of what they thought was just a portmanteau of network (or internet) and notebook.
For about a year or so I have been sending all my Googling through TOR (using Foxyproxy and a rule) as I do not like to be tracked, trended or advertised at, but it seems that Google are clamping down on people doing anonymous searches, under the old guise of blaming the end user and viruses etc. on their computer.
The problem is this. If you do a Google search through TOR, there is a very high chance you will get redirected to sorry.google.com and get a page back entitled "403 Forbidden" saying:
Google
Error
We're sorry... ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spy ware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spy ware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
If you're continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser's online support centre.
We apologise for the inconvenience and hope we'll see you again on Google.
When I started using Google through TOR it would work most of the time, with only the occasional one of these. Then the situation got better, as Google added a captcha to the page, so you could prove you were human and it would give you the results even though the freqency of the 403 went up. Then the capthca got rarer, and now I never see it, but get the 403 page near constantly. To work around the issue I have to tell my TOR daemon to create a new circuit, so I get a new exit node which might not be flooding Google as much. This obviously puts undue strain on the TOR network too.
The Google apologists will be queing up no doubt to tell me that I am getting this page because I am using TOR and all the searches appear to Google to come from a few IPs, so I should use Google directly. And whilst I am there I should forget about privacy and use a Google account all the time! All I can say is that Google's behaviour in reaction to searches from TOR is they appear to have made it harder for TOR users to use Google (do no evil, ha!), as 1) it used to work most of the time 2) TOR exit nodes are publicly known, so Google could easily whitelist those IPs 3) The captcha has gone away completely 4) the frequency of this error has shot up. I sometimes need to tell TOR to recreate the circuit over 5 times before I get an exit node that Google are serving.
I have also filled in feedback on the Google site on numerous occasions to try and get them to address the Googling through TOR issue, but I feel that they have just then clamped down on the untrackable people using TOR.
Google are very aggressive about trying to get info on their users, and it has now passed the point where they have decided that their business interests are important than people's anonymity. Google stopped being cool in my book a while ago, and these days they are utter bastards, who happen to operate the best search engine.
That's an easy choice. Disco mode needs to start when a car made in 1970's is waiting at the lights!
Where I live at the moment we have Zen's old 512k/256k ADSL package. This has no data limit, and Zen too have pestered us to change to their limited 8meg packages.
Based on a 365.25 day year, and a month that is a 12th of that, with my 512k account I can theorhetically transfer 160.5 gigabytes/month down, 80.3 gigabytes/month up.
Zen's highest download limit on their current 8meg consumer package is 50gig.... which works out at an average speed over a month of 19.9k/sec down.
You and I are both on an ISP reselling BT wholesale, and BT basically charge our ISP by the byte. I think they sell their bandwidth in chunks to the ISPs, but this is why most ISPs have some kind of transfer limit: it would be massively uneconomical for them to have a user with 8meg download 2.5 terabytes in a month, or even a significant fraction of that.
I've been looking at O2's broadband but would appreciate any suggestions for high bandwidth users!* :o)
A mate is on 24meg Bethere (the same as o2, AFAIK) and he has no download limit. They are a LLU ISP, so he doesn't have any services from BT.
A few months ago he bought a 1080p TV, and has a PC connected to it, so you can imagine how much torrenting has been happening! And not a peep from his ISP about the data transfers. The Bebox (DSL modem/router) they provide seems to have freezing issues when there's lots of torrents running, and it also periodically hangs with normal geek-level usage (once a week or two), but this is the case with most consumer grade routers in my expirience.
The CIA doesn't need to pull strings to get at Facebook's data, according to this article they were involved in the funding of it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA.
In-q-tel's site is http://www.iqt.org./
I think the CIA is even bigger and better funded than you thought!
Yeah, I noticed that the requirements screamed computers, and as my passport needed renewing I made sure I took some steps to distrupt what might be planned (or thought up in the future by a politician).
There are a couple of documents for the passport photos that the government publish: One for the users and one for the photographers. The photographers doc mentions that black and white pictures are still allowed. When I renewed my passport I hadn't had a haircut or shave for 6 months, and I got the photo place to do me black and white prints rather than colour, and on the condition they also give me a copy of the file from the digital camera.
Having a copy of the digital file means that any future photos of me that are needed by authority will all get exactly the same black and white photo that is in my electronic passport that looks like it was taken in the 1970s. Computers can't tell my eye colour, and if comparisons are made between different photos of me in the future there will be 0 differences.... so the photos can't be used to build up some "map" of me that might be as accurate as for other people. I think I will even give this saved jpeg to future employers for work ID cards..... no need for my national insurance number to be tied to another digital photo. All it takes is a change of legislation and employers could easily have to supply more employee info to the government.
It does seem to have become a Slashdot theme of late.
Something I've noticed though is that the vast majority of the "horrific loss of privacy in Britain" stories refer to proposed ideas, often by people low down in their government whose job it is to think up new ideas (whether good or - as is most often the case - bad) but few of which have yet shown any real signs of actually being implemented.
The current UK government loves its PR and spin, and seems to have a technique for breaking bad news to the public.
Far too often the government has a "leak" of a proposed new scheme, to let the press have a field day bitching about it (and people on internet forums, and discussions in the pub). There will then usually be a statement from a minister or someone, who will turn a around and say "it was a leak, so it wasn't official policy, what we want to do only XYZ to fight terror/protect the children/fight organised crime", where XYZ is a slightly watered down version of the original proposal. The press and idiots then will then be a lot more accepting of the proposal, because they feel they have "won" in some way, whereas infact there has still been a further erosion of liberty.
So we get discussions on /. about proposed plans rather than actual new laws because it looks to be (from the government's point of view) a good way to get nasty plans accepted by the public.
One of the main reasons I use NoScript is to deal with inconsistent behaviour across different websites. Javascript is used for all sorts of menus, pointless sliding transitions and fucking floating layer things that don't help with navigating a site. The new interface here on slashdot is like that... the floating box thing is very annoying, the preferences are now a nighmare, and the whole site is much slower to use if I allow JS. I don't install flash or Java for much the same reasons, to avoid annoyances. Many of these JS-heavy sites also don't work as the user expects if you try to load stuff in new tabs, with a ctrl-click.
There are also attempts by webmasters to use JS as some kind of crude DRM, which I don't fancy engaging with. I use NoScript also to stop other annoyances online, like site's wanting to popup crappy little boxes with a just a small graphic or text in.... or when you go to a domain, click some link to get into the site, and with JS they may choose to pop-up a box of a certain (fixed) size, with no address bar etc.. No thanks, my computer, I view your site how I want. If you want to make content that can only be viewed how the maker wants, go make a fucking TV programme.
What is absurd is to allow code from any old advertiser or third party to be run on your computer. The advertising networks have been targets on the past for serving malware, so by avoiding all advertising "content" you reduce the risk to yourself on all sites.
This isn't about real security..... VbV, and similar systems is about protecting the finacial institutions from the costs of fraud, by shifting the liability to the customer. It is about the security of banks' future profits.
As I understand it, with Verified by Visa you create a password for your card. When you use your card, the vendor's site sends you to a Visa/your bank controlled domain to check the password (in an iframe, so you can't actually see the domain, no easily check the certificate). The idea is that only the card holder knows the password, and part of the agreement when signing up to VbV will be a promise that you will not disclose the password, and any transaction that uses the password will be assumed to have been approved by the card holder. Of course, the agreement is long and written in legalese, so the banks know most customers will not read it, and if they did they probably wouldn't understand it.
Well, fuck that. This is just the banks being greedy... obviously the merchant fees aren't enough to keep the shareholders happy so "costs" have to be cut in other ways. So by wriggling out of some more responsibility for fraud (like has been done with the chip and pin system), the banks can make even more money.
I recommend that anyone who gets presented with verified by visa to not sign up at all, and to stop using it immediately if you have signed up to it. Get a new card, or a new bank to avoid it in the future.
NoScript on my install of FF has the VbV domains marked as untrusted, and I think I have set up blunt adblock filters to stop anything at all being loaded to do with VbV. Generally, surfing without javascript seems to stop VbV from working in the first place though.
Of course, some banks are now pressuring people to sign up to VbV, by using tactics of annoyance (disabling cards and shouting "fraud prevention"), which will work on most people....
By contrast, when my BMW says "reserve", 50 miles to go, you in fact have 50 miles to go. So as the computer says "0", the engine will sputter and die.
By contrast, one of work's Vauxhalls (UK part of GM) that I was using said it had 13 miles of fuel left, and promptly spluttered to a halt when I started away from some traffic lights, and wouldn't restart until it was filled up.
just like car manufacturers are telling you that driving an SUV is good for your safety while they make them with cheap truck chassis that are less maneuverable and do not reduce the impact of a collision nearly as much as a car chassis.
Based on some of the replies in this thread, the manufacturers propaganda is working well. Suckers seem to be lining up to defend their death trap SUVs.
But your post has been modded funny, no doubt as an attempt by someone who has a bad case of buyers-remorse that they can't admit to, to attempt to undermine your insight by getting your post labelled funny.
I bet the crack-addled moderator likes the laughter track on "comedy" like Friends because it tells him when he should be laughing. So he projects this logic onto others, and cleverly comes up with modding you funny so the other SUV owners will think you were joking rather than being serious.
No doubt I'll get a smack for this... better leave the karma bonus on so they have to waste more mod points...