The public safety officer is hewing to the absolute letter of the law with no interest in exercising any kind of critical thinking or good judgment, and the prof leaps directly to 'OMG I AM A VICTIM YOU ARE TRAMPLING MY RIGHTS' as if they'd shut down a newspaper or burned books rather than removing a piece of Hollywood memorabilia from an office door.
Now that you mention it...... I didn't even know that sign was there. Now I feel threatened and misguided because it was a professor that displayed it. My emotional distress has disabled me from performing day-to-day tasks and living in a healthy fashion.
So uh, hey... who's the lawyer that I call to get in on the class action suit? /humor
If I had some land and a wireless company wanted to put up a tower, I'd say sure. Just give me a couple of your best smartphones with an unlimited data plan for as long as you have your tower on my property. And make sure you replant the grass when you're done.
I get the feeling you're all about fairness and logical gain/loss. I like ya!
I sort of wonder what it is these people who have such a problem with
offshore windfarms up near Boston because it would destroy their beautiful skyline, even though they wouldn't be visible from shore.
crap. Is there some sort of subconscious thought that if they agree with the masses and don't bother to think or get answers on something like this that the companies/government entities they're stopping are going to put money in the mailboxes of all of the "bitchers" to convince them otherwise? I wish this were a joke, but I really wonder about peoples' blind-sightedness when it comes to physics and trade.
it's called reaping what you sow, and they've sown very little. they have a system where it only takes 5% of the users to use their maximum bandwidth (if that?) to bring down the network? that indicates a larger problem in the infrastructure.
I'm with ya. Something that you and I know that a lot of people forget to take into account, however, is that there isn't a magic happy land where everything is exactly the way you want it to be.
There is a bandwidth limitation because of the way EMR works. Until we can find technology that can have more users share the same frequencies in designated (or complete areas of) the RF spectrum, there is still an ability to abuse physics.... Unless, of course, it's logically limited, like most of the other carriers have done with bandwidth throttling and/or limitation with overage charge.
We're still lucky with AT&T, I don't want to point fingers at them and say that they're being unfair because they have every right (in your contract) to reduce the benefit of what's being paid for.
If they do, it won't affect people like me that hardly use it, but will really, REALLY piss off many who do use the hell out of it trying to get every last cent of what they paid for.
On the other hand, they'll just basically become what every other company is. People will leave AT&T because they're pissed and get on with another carrier who is doing the same damn thing (with different numbers, maybe, perhaps). That equals paying out to terminate a contract plus getting the same type of product somewhere else, minus the benefit of using the same hardware. This doesn't account, of course, for people with unlocked phones that are not in contract.:)
Another aspect is other forms of communication with physical limitations. You may pay for 15Mbps (or whatever), but that doesn't mean that everyone should just eat the hell out of it to get their money's worth. It's good for fast-when-ya-want-it service, but not constant top-speed. They do the math for pricing based on the usage statistics and probability. If ya want a guaranteed steady uplink and downlink speed with no limits, you're gonna be paying business rate.
Companies don't have magical abilities that everyone would like to think they do. They still have lots of expenses and resources to purchase, use, and maintain. For guaranteed 100% reliability, it isn't just something that can be done cheaply. Yes, companies abuse their gains QUITE often, but there still has to be a profitable level reached before it can be abused.
I'm hearing "Wheel in the Sky" in my head right now.
Sorry, this is more of a generalized rant, farble1670. Not directed at you.:)
NIMBYs are generally a pain in the ass. You can't call them Luddites, since they're not exactly against the technology, they're just selfish pricks.
A-freakin'-men. That and pricks that just like to have something to bitch about constantly. I know these people!! See below.
There is a whole city next to where I live that wants an improved signal/noise ratio for all wireless carriers (it's a hilly city, land-wise).
All citizens refuse to have a tower show up anywhere -OR- have a tower exist anywhere because of their a.) disgusting look of those damn tower things that lower [their] property value and the opinions of others about [their] perfect above-thou city, or they b.) don't want 'them there transmitters of RF' anywhere near [them], burnin' up [their] brain and kids' DNA.
Same people that bitch about one of the above also bitch about how they can't use their mobile phones at home or while driving their kids around. I won't say any more.
Did you experience that college kid's experiment thingie that happened that one day, a few weeks ago I believe, on/.?
That wasn't a bad idea. Instead of just mod-scoring, people could actually "translate" a comment made by someone to clarify misreadings or misinterpretations. Those clarifications / classifications could be scored up or down for the most agreed-upon explanation.
I liked it. Wish it would have lasted for more than a few hours.
If there is a corporation designing a device to perform such an act, they would have to follow the current on-book laws that don't allow that type of action without pre-reservation of a part of a spectrum (or multiple parts) where this action could occur.
If the FCC implemented the ability, then they would get pounded on by corporations that already have frequencies or ranges assigned to them. War ensues.
With higher frequency ranges that aren't assigned yet, that's doable, but there's another problem there - range. High frequencies travel through solid objects much better than low frequencies, but the negative for that gain is that the overall range of higher frequencies is much lower (even without solid obstruction).
And that is the key point. Real security can be audited without compromising it. Obscurity cannot be audited - you have to take their word that it is "obscure" enough. And what is obscure or inconceivable to some person may be perfectly obvious to another (such as a blackhat with actual security skills...).
Interesting point.
My counter-point (if it even matters) is that I know of a company that recently lost one of their biggest customers through an audit of the IT infrastructure (along with all security mechanisms, etc).
The logic was simple but the outcome was unfortunate because it employed valid logic rather than "valued logic":
1. The company didn't want to give the auditors copies of all of the usernames and passwords, along with the encrypted versions of said usernames and passwords, along with the formats of data transfer files, along with detailed descriptions of exchange methods, because that would be a perfect embarrassing example of willingness to hand out the most secure information to whomever requested it (keep reading, the validation of them can be f00b3d). *ON PAPER*, mind ya.
2. Customer also had a team perform stress-tests and backdoor security testing of the servers from the external and internal networks. The company saw the obscurity of internal information as an excellent tool in proving the customer's audit team's point. If you don't know what you're going to be trying to overcome, good luck overcoming it. Quote: "We'd be glad to know if you can because you'd be the first and only to do it."
3. Simple logic is more secure for the sake of image... Why should they hand them all of the securely hidden information in order to show you how secure their information security is? Isn't that breaking security?
4. Complex logic is strong, but has missing points... Assume they trusted that they were who they say they were and trusted them to maintain the security of the data. Having said that, giving them the data represents that part of the security system is lacking; i.e. if they performed checks to ensure they were, in fact, who they said they were, who is to say that they haven't found a way to exploit the security of the customer's communication beforehand, effectively making it impossible (they didn't have mobile numbers for any of the customer contacts, FYI) for them to validate that the customer really did send them there and approve that action?
End statement: it's a chance situation. They lost that customer. It hurt. Another large customer, on the other hand, actually did perform the stress testing and security vulnerability testing (with random strikes and methodologies) and was unable to harm or break the security. They were quite pleased with my friend's company and still use them to this day, refusing to switch providers because all of the others release their security information openly.:)
I can understand how silly this seems to a lot of people from a lot of different points, but I see a positive at the end of my thought train.
Instead of throttling all users or imposing limitations, they're allowing decent usage and simply issuing a kind warning to the top 5%, at THIS TIME, that they should think about alternatives to eating up so much of the distributed OTA bandwidth.
What I'm getting at is that it's better to try and poke the heaviest users to put a little thought into finding another source rather than instantaneously throttling all users as a means of being "fair".
Yeah, tell that to my ISP that decided to get rid of it just because they don't want to risk taking a risk with a risk of risking risk with risk.. yadda yadda...
Commented on the wrong comment from my phone (Anonymous, apparently). See my comment below: --
Past tense. Back when the plan existed. It was free. Here in Cincinnati. Because it wasn't free for you then and there doesn't mean it wasn't for a lot of others. Hence termination of the plan that was costing the wireless companies money. Clear now?
I've found MSE to be terrible at false positives, flagging more than one perfectly valid file on my computer as some sort of malware.
Worse is that if I tell MSE to let me decide what to do with it, then go look up whether someone else had this problem and/or research the virus or whatever, MSE will *automatically* decide after a short time that it needs to delete it and will do so.
It was at this point when I removed MSE in disgust and promised never to touch that filth ever again.
It's a hush-hush move on MS' part to encourage the individual to research on their own before acting.:)
"Oh, Woops! How did that happen?! So sorry about that Google. Totally a mistake. Totally. Our bad, really."
Meanwhile some clueless user just switched back to IE.
I'm sorry but I have to...
"In business news today, Google has filed a lawsuit asking for $150,000,000 in damages from Microsoft for taking one Google Chrome Internet browser user from them. This is related to the 'false positive' report by a Microsoft product that the Google browser was a virus or piece of 'malware'. Google is seeking damages for the one lost user, plus total long-term net loss based on loss of referrals and recommendations, combined with the establishment of case law to help businesses bring in more money from the loss of business than the actual performance of it now and in the future."
So, you're going to engage an entire Marketing team to ensure that they "advertise such limitations" to address the concerns of the geeky few that likely represent about 5% of total revenue? Yeah...good luck with that.
And as I said before, they actually already address and advertise an answer for port blocking and cap issues; it's called business-class.
The pharmaceutical companies have to do it. That's all I'm going to say.
I have found the the "beta" spam feature of google voice does a good job of filtering out crap calls. Also, every cell phone that I have used for the past 10 years has had caller ID. I just don't answer calls that I don't recognize. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail.
I wish it would last. As soon as there is the potential to make a buttload of money from "marking callers as not spam", there will be massive sales of numbers to telemarketers. Call me stupid if it doesn't happen in the next... hmm... two years.
Really? I've never seen a cell plan in the US where that was the case. Landlines, sure, but then incoming minutes don't cost you.
I saw that years ago, but it was too easy for people to get free calls. "Free incoming minutes caller" (A) calls outside caller (B). All they say is "call me back at xxx-xxxx" or just "call me back" because the caller ID shows the number;)
Person B calls back as requested, and call is free for A now.
I know that's simple logic and repeating historical occurrence, but I'm reminding those that may have forgotten about this short-lived wonder.:)
I think what the AC is talking about is the bad ones that call and say they're looking for Mr. Deadbeat... If you say you're not, they hang up before getting notified of the "this number is not a method of contact for that person" statement. Therefore, legally, the scumbag collection asses can try your number again and again until they've either got confirmation that it IS you, or, well, just keep calling ad nauseum.
Their perception of adherence to the law is not the same as the called person's. Whatever benefits them the most will be used by them. Whatever benefits the recipient of the call will be denied the "to-the-T" legal rights they have through avoidance of following the granular details, not intentional breaking.
I hope what I said makes sense outside of my head, but it's the best translation I have.
Slashdot Mirror
The public safety officer is hewing to the absolute letter of the law with no interest in exercising any kind of critical thinking or good judgment, and the prof leaps directly to 'OMG I AM A VICTIM YOU ARE TRAMPLING MY RIGHTS' as if they'd shut down a newspaper or burned books rather than removing a piece of Hollywood memorabilia from an office door.
Now that you mention it...... I didn't even know that sign was there. Now I feel threatened and misguided because it was a professor that displayed it. My emotional distress has disabled me from performing day-to-day tasks and living in a healthy fashion.
So uh, hey... who's the lawyer that I call to get in on the class action suit?
/humor
Bagginess of pants determines the answer. Sorry, all out of style here.
If I had some land and a wireless company wanted to put up a tower, I'd say sure. Just give me a couple of your best smartphones with an unlimited data plan for as long as you have your tower on my property. And make sure you replant the grass when you're done.
I get the feeling you're all about fairness and logical gain/loss. I like ya!
I sort of wonder what it is these people who have such a problem with
offshore windfarms up near Boston because it would destroy their beautiful skyline, even though they wouldn't be visible from shore.
crap. Is there some sort of subconscious thought that if they agree with the masses and don't bother to think or get answers on something like this that the companies/government entities they're stopping are going to put money in the mailboxes of all of the "bitchers" to convince them otherwise? I wish this were a joke, but I really wonder about peoples' blind-sightedness when it comes to physics and trade.
it's called reaping what you sow, and they've sown very little. they have a system where it only takes 5% of the users to use their maximum bandwidth (if that?) to bring down the network? that indicates a larger problem in the infrastructure.
I'm with ya. Something that you and I know that a lot of people forget to take into account, however, is that there isn't a magic happy land where everything is exactly the way you want it to be.
There is a bandwidth limitation because of the way EMR works. Until we can find technology that can have more users share the same frequencies in designated (or complete areas of) the RF spectrum, there is still an ability to abuse physics.... Unless, of course, it's logically limited, like most of the other carriers have done with bandwidth throttling and/or limitation with overage charge.
We're still lucky with AT&T, I don't want to point fingers at them and say that they're being unfair because they have every right (in your contract) to reduce the benefit of what's being paid for.
If they do, it won't affect people like me that hardly use it, but will really, REALLY piss off many who do use the hell out of it trying to get every last cent of what they paid for.
On the other hand, they'll just basically become what every other company is. People will leave AT&T because they're pissed and get on with another carrier who is doing the same damn thing (with different numbers, maybe, perhaps). That equals paying out to terminate a contract plus getting the same type of product somewhere else, minus the benefit of using the same hardware. This doesn't account, of course, for people with unlocked phones that are not in contract. :)
Another aspect is other forms of communication with physical limitations. You may pay for 15Mbps (or whatever), but that doesn't mean that everyone should just eat the hell out of it to get their money's worth. It's good for fast-when-ya-want-it service, but not constant top-speed. They do the math for pricing based on the usage statistics and probability. If ya want a guaranteed steady uplink and downlink speed with no limits, you're gonna be paying business rate.
Companies don't have magical abilities that everyone would like to think they do. They still have lots of expenses and resources to purchase, use, and maintain. For guaranteed 100% reliability, it isn't just something that can be done cheaply. Yes, companies abuse their gains QUITE often, but there still has to be a profitable level reached before it can be abused.
I'm hearing "Wheel in the Sky" in my head right now.
Sorry, this is more of a generalized rant, farble1670. Not directed at you. :)
NIMBYs are generally a pain in the ass. You can't call them Luddites, since they're not exactly against the technology, they're just selfish pricks.
A-freakin'-men. That and pricks that just like to have something to bitch about constantly. I know these people!! See below.
There is a whole city next to where I live that wants an improved signal/noise ratio for all wireless carriers (it's a hilly city, land-wise).
All citizens refuse to have a tower show up anywhere -OR- have a tower exist anywhere because of their a.) disgusting look of those damn tower things that lower [their] property value and the opinions of others about [their] perfect above-thou city, or they b.) don't want 'them there transmitters of RF' anywhere near [them], burnin' up [their] brain and kids' DNA.
Same people that bitch about one of the above also bitch about how they can't use their mobile phones at home or while driving their kids around. I won't say any more.
Did you experience that college kid's experiment thingie that happened that one day, a few weeks ago I believe, on /.?
That wasn't a bad idea. Instead of just mod-scoring, people could actually "translate" a comment made by someone to clarify misreadings or misinterpretations. Those clarifications / classifications could be scored up or down for the most agreed-upon explanation.
I liked it. Wish it would have lasted for more than a few hours.
Chicken and egg.
If there is a corporation designing a device to perform such an act, they would have to follow the current on-book laws that don't allow that type of action without pre-reservation of a part of a spectrum (or multiple parts) where this action could occur.
If the FCC implemented the ability, then they would get pounded on by corporations that already have frequencies or ranges assigned to them. War ensues.
With higher frequency ranges that aren't assigned yet, that's doable, but there's another problem there - range. High frequencies travel through solid objects much better than low frequencies, but the negative for that gain is that the overall range of higher frequencies is much lower (even without solid obstruction).
Now we open a whole new can of worms. :)
> Which bank would you prefer?
And that is the key point. Real security can be audited without compromising it. Obscurity cannot be audited - you have to take their word that it is "obscure" enough. And what is obscure or inconceivable to some person may be perfectly obvious to another (such as a blackhat with actual security skills...).
Interesting point.
My counter-point (if it even matters) is that I know of a company that recently lost one of their biggest customers through an audit of the IT infrastructure (along with all security mechanisms, etc).
The logic was simple but the outcome was unfortunate because it employed valid logic rather than "valued logic":
1. The company didn't want to give the auditors copies of all of the usernames and passwords, along with the encrypted versions of said usernames and passwords, along with the formats of data transfer files, along with detailed descriptions of exchange methods, because that would be a perfect embarrassing example of willingness to hand out the most secure information to whomever requested it (keep reading, the validation of them can be f00b3d). *ON PAPER*, mind ya.
2. Customer also had a team perform stress-tests and backdoor security testing of the servers from the external and internal networks. The company saw the obscurity of internal information as an excellent tool in proving the customer's audit team's point. If you don't know what you're going to be trying to overcome, good luck overcoming it. Quote: "We'd be glad to know if you can because you'd be the first and only to do it."
3. Simple logic is more secure for the sake of image... Why should they hand them all of the securely hidden information in order to show you how secure their information security is? Isn't that breaking security?
4. Complex logic is strong, but has missing points... Assume they trusted that they were who they say they were and trusted them to maintain the security of the data. Having said that, giving them the data represents that part of the security system is lacking; i.e. if they performed checks to ensure they were, in fact, who they said they were, who is to say that they haven't found a way to exploit the security of the customer's communication beforehand, effectively making it impossible (they didn't have mobile numbers for any of the customer contacts, FYI) for them to validate that the customer really did send them there and approve that action?
End statement: it's a chance situation. They lost that customer. It hurt. Another large customer, on the other hand, actually did perform the stress testing and security vulnerability testing (with random strikes and methodologies) and was unable to harm or break the security. They were quite pleased with my friend's company and still use them to this day, refusing to switch providers because all of the others release their security information openly. :)
I can understand how silly this seems to a lot of people from a lot of different points, but I see a positive at the end of my thought train.
Instead of throttling all users or imposing limitations, they're allowing decent usage and simply issuing a kind warning to the top 5%, at THIS TIME, that they should think about alternatives to eating up so much of the distributed OTA bandwidth.
What I'm getting at is that it's better to try and poke the heaviest users to put a little thought into finding another source rather than instantaneously throttling all users as a means of being "fair".
Just my $0.0002.
If I enter my last name.com, meaning "strong.com", it redirects to http://www.wellsfargoadvantagefunds.com/.
Should I sue because it tarnishes my name, even though it is completely unrelated based on use and classification?
Give me a break. They want money. :)
Yeah, tell that to my ISP that decided to get rid of it just because they don't want to risk taking a risk with a risk of risking risk with risk.. yadda yadda...
My provider's name is Time Warner.
Okay was the comment above yours dry humor or dry ice humor?
Commented on the wrong comment from my phone (Anonymous, apparently). See my comment below:
--
Past tense. Back when the plan existed. It was free. Here in Cincinnati. Because it wasn't free for you then and there doesn't mean it wasn't for a lot of others. Hence termination of the plan that was costing the wireless companies money. Clear now?
I applaud your choice, good sir! 42 is always the right answer.
Careful.... 62% of geeks cannot recognize or do not know what dry humor is. :>
Ok... compromise.
Stern-lookware?
Loud-sighware?
Adrenaline-releaseware?
Stomp-footware?
Annoyware?
But-I-trusted-youware?
I-need-to-walk-away-for-a-minuteware?
Please-stopware?
Wish-you-would-uninstall-instead-of-lyingware?
Well, a couple were a little long but hell... Runnin' out of acronyms; may as well run out of 'WareNames'. :>
Now that's funny. And I know funny. I'm a clownfish.
I'll take that as a compliment. lol
I've found MSE to be terrible at false positives, flagging more than one perfectly valid file on my computer as some sort of malware.
Worse is that if I tell MSE to let me decide what to do with it, then go look up whether someone else had this problem and/or research the virus or whatever, MSE will *automatically* decide after a short time that it needs to delete it and will do so.
It was at this point when I removed MSE in disgust and promised never to touch that filth ever again.
It's a hush-hush move on MS' part to encourage the individual to research on their own before acting. :)
HUMOR, HUMOR.
"Oh, Woops! How did that happen?! So sorry about that Google. Totally a mistake. Totally. Our bad, really."
Meanwhile some clueless user just switched back to IE.
I'm sorry but I have to...
"In business news today, Google has filed a lawsuit asking for $150,000,000 in damages from Microsoft for taking one Google Chrome Internet browser user from them. This is related to the 'false positive' report by a Microsoft product that the Google browser was a virus or piece of 'malware'. Google is seeking damages for the one lost user, plus total long-term net loss based on loss of referrals and recommendations, combined with the establishment of case law to help businesses bring in more money from the loss of business than the actual performance of it now and in the future."
/humor
Not really. In your scenario above, and with “caller pays” billing, it simply means that (B) pays for the call instead of (A).
This is true regardless of whether A and B are landlines or cell phones, assuming “caller pays”.
Landlines didn't pay on a per-call basis. They paid for monthly unlimited service at a set rate.
We're talking 'per-call' here, not 'service, period'. Hopefully this is granular enough that it makes sense.
So, you're going to engage an entire Marketing team to ensure that they "advertise such limitations" to address the concerns of the geeky few that likely represent about 5% of total revenue? Yeah...good luck with that.
And as I said before, they actually already address and advertise an answer for port blocking and cap issues; it's called business-class.
The pharmaceutical companies have to do it. That's all I'm going to say.
That was when over 50% of people still had and used land line phones. I believe that answers your question.
I have found the the "beta" spam feature of google voice does a good job of filtering out crap calls. Also, every cell phone that I have used for the past 10 years has had caller ID. I just don't answer calls that I don't recognize. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail.
I wish it would last. As soon as there is the potential to make a buttload of money from "marking callers as not spam", there will be massive sales of numbers to telemarketers. Call me stupid if it doesn't happen in the next... hmm... two years.
Really? I've never seen a cell plan in the US where that was the case. Landlines, sure, but then incoming minutes don't cost you.
I saw that years ago, but it was too easy for people to get free calls. "Free incoming minutes caller" (A) calls outside caller (B). All they say is "call me back at xxx-xxxx" or just "call me back" because the caller ID shows the number ;)
Person B calls back as requested, and call is free for A now.
I know that's simple logic and repeating historical occurrence, but I'm reminding those that may have forgotten about this short-lived wonder. :)
I think what the AC is talking about is the bad ones that call and say they're looking for Mr. Deadbeat... If you say you're not, they hang up before getting notified of the "this number is not a method of contact for that person" statement. Therefore, legally, the scumbag collection asses can try your number again and again until they've either got confirmation that it IS you, or, well, just keep calling ad nauseum.
Their perception of adherence to the law is not the same as the called person's. Whatever benefits them the most will be used by them. Whatever benefits the recipient of the call will be denied the "to-the-T" legal rights they have through avoidance of following the granular details, not intentional breaking.
I hope what I said makes sense outside of my head, but it's the best translation I have.
Fuck! There goes another hobby. Chemistry, Rocketry, RC Planes... I wonder which geeky hobby is next up to be regulated into oblivion.
Most go for the cover-all and fast solutions that require the least thought. I predict the next will be: Geeks themselves.
I'm outta here.