Eventually we're going to spend 24 hours a day staring at the screens because there'll be no excuse at all for leaving the screen.
Do you actually reboot that often? I'm pissed off if I have to reboot once every 6 months.
There's always an "excuse" to be away from the screen. It's called having a life outside of your computer. If you have let your work enter your personal life so far that you seriously believe you have to be attached you have more problems than you think.
The 5MB/2MB pricing is great for my area. I get about 4MB/256KB right now for around $29/month. The biggest advantage to the fiber would be the 2MB upload speed which would be great as I send a lot of photos to my dad for a genealogical project. I went to Verizons site and my phone number doesn't qualify yet, but, I'm sure it will be eventually....
Feel special. DSL here is 2048/256 for a bit under $60 here. Cable (with all its port blocking glory) is $39.99/mo for 3000/256.
I would do ANYTHING for inexpensive high bandwith connections. I don't even care about the upstream. Just give me reasonable speeds downstream with reliable service. No random disconnects, hours and hours of downtime w/o anyone to fix the problem, and crappy DSL routers required.
Well according to the data on my site of which most of the traffic comes from slashdot referrers I have found this since 6/04 for MSIE 6.0 (and only 6.0) and Mozilla 5.0:
Yup, my numbers are just as meaningless and skewed as any other site except perhaps google. But I still find it interesting that SO many people use MSIE over Mozilla-based browsers even when they are mostly coming from Slashdot.
So while Kerry wouldn't say anything in support, he would happily sit by while activist judges (of the sort he would be appointing) rammed it down our throats.
If Bush is re-elected and the time comes to put new Justices on the Supreme Court what is he going to do? He's going to put judges on their that are sympathetic to his (not his party's) own personal goal of bringing religious morality back into this country.
I'm sorry but they are both worthless assholes. Bush has a political+relgious agenda while Kerry doesn't have much of anything.
Personally I believe that seperation of church and state is important. He calls them morals and I call it religion. Symantics... DO NOT SHOVE YOUR RELGIOUS VALUES DOWN MY FUCKING THROAT.
Do the presidents really have time for this? I suspect they would have any incentive to even think about this.
Somehow they seem to have plenty of time to parade around in front of the people trying to gather votes. Personally, I think the President (especially during a war that we aren't exactly "winning") should be off doing more important things than stuttering in front of a group people who will likely vote for him anyway.
Neither politician has the moxie to say in public that he agrees with gay marriage...
That's because neither of the candidates support it. Bush doesn't support it and wants a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Kerry doesn't support it but is against any such legislation.
Strangely enough, both candidates are nearly mirroring their stances on the issue of IP theft:
Said Bush: "I strongly support efforts to protect intellectual property and will continue to work with Congress to ensure all intellectual property is properly protected...We must vigorously enforce intellectual-property protections and prosecute the violators, not the technology." He noted that his administration launched an initiative to enforce such laws and has worked closely with China to support penalties associated with violating American intellectual-property rights.
Kerry, meanwhile, has a slightly different stance. "I do not condone the illegal sharing of copyrighted material," Kerry said, though he is "open to examining whether legislative action is necessary to ensure that a person who lawfully receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes."
Poor Jim Lehrer of PBS, who moderated the first presidential debate, was left scratching his head about what actually differentiated the two men who would be president.
I just pointed out a major difference... Bush is against X and legislates against X (including denying rights to Americans because he wants to bring religious morality back into the country). Kerry is against X as well but doesn't have any plans to do anything about it.
Explain to me how $999 iBook is expensive? or $799 eMac? If you don't like the look of the hardware. Well, tough. I guess you can buy anything in the gray ai32 world.
It's expensive compared to an old Pentium II/III sitting around your house in pieces or an older G3.
Just because the minimum requirements are on the side of the box doesn't mean that much of the OS is bloated. That's the problem when the OS company designs and sells the hardware too.
Exactly. Even your other precious bottled water is basically filtered tap water. Just because the bottle says "state of the art HydRO-7 purification system" doesn't mean that it isn't recycled right out of the urinary tracts of your neighbors.
I haven't yet finished the download so I can't tell. They do seem to promote their anonymous proxy though and that's what worries me.
That aside...
Sure, it's nice to have your cookies and whatnot stored on a USB key but that data is still traveling to your USB device via their hardware. It's NOT secure and they shouldn't infer that it is.
And yet I am tunneling through SOMEONE ELSES proxy (which isn't free) to do my "secure" work.
I'm sorry but I cannot bring myself to trust my cookies, settings, and information to travel over anyone else's network. It's not safe unless *I* am the one controlling the proxy and the tunnel between the two.
SSH, Putty (for Windows users), and squid on your own machine is what I use. Yeah, you still can't avoid keyloggers and the like but at least you know that you are controlling what is being logged and where.
It's like a free ride when you've already paid.
on
GTA: San Andreas Leaked
·
· Score: 5, Funny
"Downloading, possession and distribution of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including making the game available on the internet, is theft." Then came this warning from the company: "We take the theft of our intellectual property very seriously and we are and will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter."
I take the virtual theft of guns, money, sex with hookers, cars, and other people's lives very seriously and I will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter once I get my hands on the game.
Yet another news article that continues the bombardment of the uninformed public trying to change the definition of words to fit their needs.
You know, I'm not a fan of the continual ads about the iPod on Slashdot but that's another story.
On another tangent, will the next U2 album be so terrible that they need to latch on to the iPod in order to get an image boost as "still relevant"?
Actually the new album, from what I have heard of it, doesn't really sound like your typical U2 pop rock stuff. Some of it is actually decent and some of it is absolute shit. But I suppose that I'm more tuned in to their older shit and don't really care for the turn they have taken with this album (again, what I have heard from it at least).
Well, if you are in the United States it is against FERPA to use SSNs (or parts thereof) to post grades.
I suggest immediately asking all your professors to cease and desist their actions. If they refuse bring it to the heads of their departments. If your requests are again ignored I suggest filing a complaint against them as shown below...
See the document posted below with regards to this (pasted because it's in DOC format -- formatted after paste to avoid whitespace filter):
===
Dr. Evangelos J. Gizis Interim President Hunter College of the City University of New York 695 Park Avenue New York, New York 10021
Complaint No. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Dear Dr. Gizis:
This is to advise you of the finding in the complaint filed with this Office by [Student] who alleged that Hunter College of the City University of New York (College) violated his rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Specifically, the Student alleged that Mr. Cullen Schaffer, a computer science professor, posted his exam and final grade on a web page along with the last four digits of his social security number.
This Office advised you of the allegation by letter dated August 21, 2000, and you responded on behalf of the College by letter dated September 25, 2000. You state in your letter that many College professors do post grades by the last four digits of a student's social security number. You state that "no student names are listed" and that this "enables students to easily identify their own grades, yet remain unable to identify any other student's identities." You also state that the College does "not consider this practice to be in violation of FERPA or any other applicable laws."
FERPA protects privacy interests of parents in their children's "education records," and generally prohibits the disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records without the consent of the parent. The term "education records" is broadly defined as all records, files, documents and other materials which:
contain information directly related to a student; and are maintained by the educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution.
20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(4)(A); 34 CFR 99.3 "Education records." When a student reaches the age of 18 or attends an institution of postsecondary education, the student is considered an "eligible student" under FERPA and all of the rights afforded by FERPA transfer from the parents to the student.
Under FERPA an eligible student must provide his or her prior written consent before an educational agency or institution discloses personally identifiable information from his or her education records. 20 U.S.C. 1232g(b); 34 CFR 99.30. Section 99.3 of the regulations defines the "Personally identifiable information" as information that includes but is not limited to:
(a) the student's name; (b) the name of the student's parent or other family member; (c) the address of the student or the student's family; (d) a personal identifier, such as the student's social security number or student number; (e) a list of personal characteristics that would make the student's identity easily traceable; or (f) other information that would make the student's identity easily traceable.
34 CFR 99.3 "Personally identifiable information." (Emphasis added.) A student's social security number is, by definition, "personally identifiable information" under FERPA, and may not be disclosed without consent in any form.
FERPA provides that educational agencies and institutions may not disclose personally identifiable, non-directory information from education records unless a parent or eligible student has provided a signed and dated written consent in accordance
Without the freedom the Internet provides, it's just more television. And people will go back to their couch to watch TV if they can't get to chickswithbighugecocks.and.dildos.pr0n.smut.co.uk, because their couch is more comfortable anyway.
I don't see your point here. People love TV even though it's shoved down their throats.
We will not accept a non-free Internet, not after having a free one.
A lot of things used to be unregulated and now are. People over time will be assimilated. That's how it works.
Its been demonstrated that although people are willing to put up with microsoft products, they are unwilling to "trust" microsoft. Remember Microsoft Passport? Good idea, not too popular.
Passport was something else. You weren't required to use Passport to use the Internet. In this case, you will either A) know that you are using a trusted OS and like it because you don't want to have untrusted exploits doing damage, B) you won't know because you don't know/don't care, or C) you have moved to an untrusted OS for various reasons.
People will continue to use MSFT products and they will likely be happy to believe the hype that trusted OSs keep them safe from terrorists, the flu even during supposed shortages of vaccinations, and worms/viruses.
Well it may not die as in coffin dead but it may certainly morph into something completely different.
With the onset of so many worms, trojans, and other miscellaneous exploits people are finally going to get fed up. They aren't going to switch away from Microsoft products to eliviate their problems though. Nope... What they're going to do is they're going to switch to Bill's latest and greatest achievement...
Trusted Computing. This will be a BIOS, OS, and network interface that will be 100% secure. It will be running only "trusted" applications because Bill has certified them all. Remember those cute Windows on the corner of all pieces of hardware and software? Designed for MS Windows98? Well, this is going to be the same thing only not even the worms can run!
See, safe, right? Well, you won't be able to be on the same Internet we have now because that's not trusted. Soon you'll be connecting to port 3128 of the trusted.proxy.microsoft.com to get your Internet.
The "other Internet" (the one that the rest of us will be using) won't be protected, won't be trusted, and won't be supported by the Windows people.
You draw your own conclusions as to what that will mean.
The problem is nobody actually cares about that minor little legal detail. I wish the government would crack down on this and take care of identity theft once and for all.
Well I went to a video store once. They required an SSN to rent movies there. When I told her it was illegal to use them as an ID number she told me it wasn't illegal to refuse me service.
As long as there's no way to enforce the rules the rules are worthless.
Now, in this case SSNs were likely necessary in the first place but they are probably unnecessary for research and thus my suggestion that the records should have been linked to a random ID number that was only able to be cross-referenced later at the State office.
I can smell an over-reaction brewing. This is just the sort of incident that can force the adoption of stringent laws.
As you all probably know I'm the last person that thinks that we should create laws due to overreaction but in this case I have to say that we do need more stringent laws against protecting SSNs.
There is absolutely no reason that a researcher needed access to SSNs. They should have all been assigned a random ID number and that should have been linked back to the SSNs and stored in the STATE OFFICES ONLY for later cross referencing.
We have all these demands for SSNs and we are supposed to be protecting them as our entire history is linked to them yet we don't have any real protections when they are.
The data, which included home addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth, was being used at the state's authorization but without the consent of the individuals whose information was being used in the study.
The title says it included SSNs but the article doesn't mention them. Were they included or not? What the hell does a researcher need to have SSNs for anyway? Can't they be identified by insignificant numbers?
The university detected its computer system had been broken into at the end of August, but did not notify the state until Sept. 27 after the school had done its own investigation with the FBI, Strait said.
And here we are on October 20th hearing about it. I wonder if the people that were included in that database (that should have been kept on a completely secluded network IMHO) were contacted September 28th or if they had to wait until three bureaucratic agencies had done their own investigations...
You forgot the last steps: the machine then prints a human-readable (optionally also machine-readable) ballot with all your votes, which you verify and drop in the ballot box before you leave. A touchscreen system with no paper trail is unacceptable.
And this is the exact reason that this method is unnecessary. Voting is already a pain in the ass for people apparently as so little people do it. So let's make everyone's lives more difficult by adding MORE steps, more pieces of paper to think about, and more places to screw up.
Keep the current system in place. It works just fine.
How about you look into your subject a little before you bash people for being suckered by advertising when that's not the case?
How about you read into some of the examples I mentioned before you start into some uneducated barage of bullshit?
But although it is technically just one giant commercial, there is not a constant product barrage. People answering the payphones aren't getting spammed with "Buy Bungie games!" or "XBox Rulez!" because that breaks the suspension of disbelief the game (I Love Bees) has created.
The items I mentioned (Geocaching yellow jeeps, A Christmas Story, and the music cartels) have all come under the guise of something else. Yeah, when you're geocaching you pick up travel bugs. Usually they are released by other geocachers for the fun of watching them travel. These were created for the sole purpose of advertising Jeeps.
Ovaltine was sponsoring a radio story which ended in a code that you decoded with your ring. You found out the secret message only at the end of the game. Based on the reaction from the main character I'm assuming he wasn't expecting what he learned.
The music cartels love to give you what you want... Music. Lots of it. Most people have no idea it's a commercial and even if they do most people just don't care because they get their music.
The point of all of this is that even though YOU might not care it's still blatant marketing and you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. If that's ok w/you, so be it, but the parent shouldn't bitch that the rest of us don't care for it.
I'm not sure I'd lump this into the same category as pay for play and secret decoder rings.
From what I remember of the Ovaltine thing was that they listened to a story for weeks, waited for their decoder ring, all for the final wrap up so that they could decode the all important message.
All it turned out to be was a lame marketing gimick for Ovaltine...
While the final storyline message might be different the principle remains the same. You listen and listen and listen, hooked on every word, and find out that in the end you have been just been duped into buying your Ovaltine just because you're a fan of something they pay for.
Slashdot Mirror
Eventually we're going to spend 24 hours a day staring at the screens because there'll be no excuse at all for leaving the screen.
Do you actually reboot that often? I'm pissed off if I have to reboot once every 6 months.
There's always an "excuse" to be away from the screen. It's called having a life outside of your computer. If you have let your work enter your personal life so far that you seriously believe you have to be attached you have more problems than you think.
The 5MB/2MB pricing is great for my area. I get about 4MB/256KB right now for around $29/month. The biggest advantage to the fiber would be the 2MB upload speed which would be great as I send a lot of photos to my dad for a genealogical project. I went to Verizons site and my phone number doesn't qualify yet, but, I'm sure it will be eventually....
Feel special. DSL here is 2048/256 for a bit under $60 here. Cable (with all its port blocking glory) is $39.99/mo for 3000/256.
I would do ANYTHING for inexpensive high bandwith connections. I don't even care about the upstream. Just give me reasonable speeds downstream with reliable service. No random disconnects, hours and hours of downtime w/o anyone to fix the problem, and crappy DSL routers required.
Well according to the data on my site of which most of the traffic comes from slashdot referrers I have found this since 6/04 for MSIE 6.0 (and only 6.0) and Mozilla 5.0:
June '04:
MSIE 6.0 - 6444 (56%)
Moz 5.0 - 2330 (20%)
July '04:
MSIE 6.0 - 8673 (48%)
Moz 5.0 - 5144 (28%)
August '04:
MSIE 6.0 - 8954 (42%)
Moz 5.0 - 7331 (34%)
September '04:
MSIE 6.0 - 15515 (41%)
Moz 5.0 - 12550 (33%)
October '04 (through yesterday):
MSIE 6.0 - 16209 (39%)
Moz 5.0 - 14540 (35%)
Yup, my numbers are just as meaningless and skewed as any other site except perhaps google. But I still find it interesting that SO many people use MSIE over Mozilla-based browsers even when they are mostly coming from Slashdot.
So while Kerry wouldn't say anything in support, he would happily sit by while activist judges (of the sort he would be appointing) rammed it down our throats.
If Bush is re-elected and the time comes to put new Justices on the Supreme Court what is he going to do? He's going to put judges on their that are sympathetic to his (not his party's) own personal goal of bringing religious morality back into this country.
I'm sorry but they are both worthless assholes. Bush has a political+relgious agenda while Kerry doesn't have much of anything.
Personally I believe that seperation of church and state is important. He calls them morals and I call it religion. Symantics... DO NOT SHOVE YOUR RELGIOUS VALUES DOWN MY FUCKING THROAT.
Do the presidents really have time for this? I suspect they would have any incentive to even think about this.
Somehow they seem to have plenty of time to parade around in front of the people trying to gather votes. Personally, I think the President (especially during a war that we aren't exactly "winning") should be off doing more important things than stuttering in front of a group people who will likely vote for him anyway.
Neither politician has the moxie to say in public that he agrees with gay marriage...
That's because neither of the candidates support it. Bush doesn't support it and wants a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Kerry doesn't support it but is against any such legislation.
Strangely enough, both candidates are nearly mirroring their stances on the issue of IP theft:
Said Bush: "I strongly support efforts to protect intellectual property and will continue to work with Congress to ensure all intellectual property is properly protected...We must vigorously enforce intellectual-property protections and prosecute the violators, not the technology." He noted that his administration launched an initiative to enforce such laws and has worked closely with China to support penalties associated with violating American intellectual-property rights.
Kerry, meanwhile, has a slightly different stance. "I do not condone the illegal sharing of copyrighted material," Kerry said, though he is "open to examining whether legislative action is necessary to ensure that a person who lawfully receives a transmission of a digital work may back up a copy of it for archival purposes."
Poor Jim Lehrer of PBS, who moderated the first presidential debate, was left scratching his head about what actually differentiated the two men who would be president.
I just pointed out a major difference... Bush is against X and legislates against X (including denying rights to Americans because he wants to bring religious morality back into the country). Kerry is against X as well but doesn't have any plans to do anything about it.
Explain to me how $999 iBook is expensive? or $799 eMac? If you don't like the look of the hardware. Well, tough. I guess you can buy anything in the gray ai32 world.
It's expensive compared to an old Pentium II/III sitting around your house in pieces or an older G3.
Just because the minimum requirements are on the side of the box doesn't mean that much of the OS is bloated. That's the problem when the OS company designs and sells the hardware too.
How long will my fillings tingle after I pull my head out of the microwave?
Exactly. Even your other precious bottled water is basically filtered tap water. Just because the bottle says "state of the art HydRO-7 purification system" doesn't mean that it isn't recycled right out of the urinary tracts of your neighbors.
From the README.TXT
+++WARNING+++
-------------
This is a technology preview and comes with NO SUPPORT, NO WARRANTY
and NO GUARANTEE for any purpose.
Windows Instructions:
Double click on 'boot-win.bat'
Linux Instructions:
run 'boot-linux.bat' from the command line
Now what I find funny is that boot-win.bat doesn't exist and I believe what they meant was qemu-win.bat.
I just can't trust my data to a piece of software that claims no responsibility and doesn't even have the correct filename in a 491 byte README.TXT.
I'll stick w/my current methods TYVM.
I haven't yet finished the download so I can't tell. They do seem to promote their anonymous proxy though and that's what worries me.
That aside...
Sure, it's nice to have your cookies and whatnot stored on a USB key but that data is still traveling to your USB device via their hardware. It's NOT secure and they shouldn't infer that it is.
And yet I am tunneling through SOMEONE ELSES proxy (which isn't free) to do my "secure" work.
I'm sorry but I cannot bring myself to trust my cookies, settings, and information to travel over anyone else's network. It's not safe unless *I* am the one controlling the proxy and the tunnel between the two.
SSH, Putty (for Windows users), and squid on your own machine is what I use. Yeah, you still can't avoid keyloggers and the like but at least you know that you are controlling what is being logged and where.
"Downloading, possession and distribution of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, including making the game available on the internet, is theft." Then came this warning from the company: "We take the theft of our intellectual property very seriously and we are and will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter."
I take the virtual theft of guns, money, sex with hookers, cars, and other people's lives very seriously and I will continue to diligently and aggressively pursue this matter once I get my hands on the game.
Yet another news article that continues the bombardment of the uninformed public trying to change the definition of words to fit their needs.
You know, I'm not a fan of the continual ads about the iPod on Slashdot but that's another story.
On another tangent, will the next U2 album be so terrible that they need to latch on to the iPod in order to get an image boost as "still relevant"?
Actually the new album, from what I have heard of it, doesn't really sound like your typical U2 pop rock stuff. Some of it is actually decent and some of it is absolute shit. But I suppose that I'm more tuned in to their older shit and don't really care for the turn they have taken with this album (again, what I have heard from it at least).
Well, if you are in the United States it is against FERPA to use SSNs (or parts thereof) to post grades.
I suggest immediately asking all your professors to cease and desist their actions. If they refuse bring it to the heads of their departments. If your requests are again ignored I suggest filing a complaint against them as shown below...
See the document posted below with regards to this (pasted because it's in DOC format -- formatted after paste to avoid whitespace filter):
===
Dr. Evangelos J. Gizis
Interim President
Hunter College of the City University of New York
695 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10021
Complaint No.
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Dear Dr. Gizis:
This is to advise you of the finding in the complaint filed with this Office by [Student] who alleged that Hunter College of the City University of New York (College) violated his rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Specifically, the Student alleged that Mr. Cullen Schaffer, a computer science professor, posted his exam and final grade on a web page along with the last four digits of his social security number.
This Office advised you of the allegation by letter dated August 21, 2000, and you responded on behalf of the College by letter dated September 25, 2000. You state in your letter that many College professors do post grades by the last four digits of a student's social security number. You state that "no student names are listed" and that this "enables students to easily identify their own grades, yet remain unable to identify any other student's identities." You also state that the College does "not consider this practice to be in violation of FERPA or any other applicable laws."
FERPA protects privacy interests of parents in their children's "education records," and generally prohibits the disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records without the consent of the parent. The term "education records" is broadly defined as all records, files, documents and other materials which:
contain information directly related to a student; and are maintained by the educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution.
20 U.S.C. 1232g(a)(4)(A); 34 CFR 99.3 "Education records." When a student reaches the age of 18 or attends an institution of postsecondary education, the student is considered an "eligible student" under FERPA and all of the rights afforded by FERPA transfer from the parents to the student.
Under FERPA an eligible student must provide his or her prior written consent before an educational agency or institution discloses personally identifiable information from his or her education records. 20 U.S.C. 1232g(b); 34 CFR 99.30. Section 99.3 of the regulations defines the "Personally identifiable information" as information that includes but is not limited to:
(a) the student's name;
(b) the name of the student's parent or other family member;
(c) the address of the student or the student's family;
(d) a personal identifier, such as the student's social security number or student number;
(e) a list of personal characteristics that would make the student's identity easily traceable; or
(f) other information that would make the student's identity easily traceable.
34 CFR 99.3 "Personally identifiable information." (Emphasis added.) A student's social security number is, by definition, "personally identifiable information" under FERPA, and may not be disclosed without consent in any form.
FERPA provides that educational agencies and institutions may not disclose personally identifiable, non-directory information from education records unless a parent or eligible student has provided a signed and dated written consent in accordance
Without the freedom the Internet provides, it's just more television. And people will go back to their couch to watch TV if they can't get to chickswithbighugecocks.and.dildos.pr0n.smut.co.uk, because their couch is more comfortable anyway.
I don't see your point here. People love TV even though it's shoved down their throats.
We will not accept a non-free Internet, not after having a free one.
A lot of things used to be unregulated and now are. People over time will be assimilated. That's how it works.
Its been demonstrated that although people are willing to put up with microsoft products, they are unwilling to "trust" microsoft. Remember Microsoft Passport? Good idea, not too popular.
Passport was something else. You weren't required to use Passport to use the Internet. In this case, you will either A) know that you are using a trusted OS and like it because you don't want to have untrusted exploits doing damage, B) you won't know because you don't know/don't care, or C) you have moved to an untrusted OS for various reasons.
People will continue to use MSFT products and they will likely be happy to believe the hype that trusted OSs keep them safe from terrorists, the flu even during supposed shortages of vaccinations, and worms/viruses.
...I have a bridge for sale.
Well it may not die as in coffin dead but it may certainly morph into something completely different.
With the onset of so many worms, trojans, and other miscellaneous exploits people are finally going to get fed up. They aren't going to switch away from Microsoft products to eliviate their problems though. Nope... What they're going to do is they're going to switch to Bill's latest and greatest achievement...
Trusted Computing. This will be a BIOS, OS, and network interface that will be 100% secure. It will be running only "trusted" applications because Bill has certified them all. Remember those cute Windows on the corner of all pieces of hardware and software? Designed for MS Windows98? Well, this is going to be the same thing only not even the worms can run!
See, safe, right? Well, you won't be able to be on the same Internet we have now because that's not trusted. Soon you'll be connecting to port 3128 of the trusted.proxy.microsoft.com to get your Internet.
The "other Internet" (the one that the rest of us will be using) won't be protected, won't be trusted, and won't be supported by the Windows people.
You draw your own conclusions as to what that will mean.
How about we just get rid of the SSN system completely? Or would that offend your leftist views?
Well actually if I *was* a "leftist" I would be in support of removing the SSN numbering system as it is a single indentifier to my person.
If I was a right-wing wacko then I'd support SSN numbers as a national ID number so that I could easily be tracked and weeded out as a terrorist.
Perhaps you're just a trollist?
The problem is nobody actually cares about that minor little legal detail. I wish the government would crack down on this and take care of identity theft once and for all.
Well I went to a video store once. They required an SSN to rent movies there. When I told her it was illegal to use them as an ID number she told me it wasn't illegal to refuse me service.
As long as there's no way to enforce the rules the rules are worthless.
Now, in this case SSNs were likely necessary in the first place but they are probably unnecessary for research and thus my suggestion that the records should have been linked to a random ID number that was only able to be cross-referenced later at the State office.
I can smell an over-reaction brewing. This is just the sort of incident that can force the adoption of stringent laws.
As you all probably know I'm the last person that thinks that we should create laws due to overreaction but in this case I have to say that we do need more stringent laws against protecting SSNs.
There is absolutely no reason that a researcher needed access to SSNs. They should have all been assigned a random ID number and that should have been linked back to the SSNs and stored in the STATE OFFICES ONLY for later cross referencing.
We have all these demands for SSNs and we are supposed to be protecting them as our entire history is linked to them yet we don't have any real protections when they are.
The data, which included home addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth, was being used at the state's authorization but without the consent of the individuals whose information was being used in the study.
The title says it included SSNs but the article doesn't mention them. Were they included or not? What the hell does a researcher need to have SSNs for anyway? Can't they be identified by insignificant numbers?
The university detected its computer system had been broken into at the end of August, but did not notify the state until Sept. 27 after the school had done its own investigation with the FBI, Strait said.
And here we are on October 20th hearing about it. I wonder if the people that were included in that database (that should have been kept on a completely secluded network IMHO) were contacted September 28th or if they had to wait until three bureaucratic agencies had done their own investigations...
You forgot the last steps: the machine then prints a human-readable (optionally also machine-readable) ballot with all your votes, which you verify and drop in the ballot box before you leave. A touchscreen system with no paper trail is unacceptable.
And this is the exact reason that this method is unnecessary. Voting is already a pain in the ass for people apparently as so little people do it. So let's make everyone's lives more difficult by adding MORE steps, more pieces of paper to think about, and more places to screw up.
Keep the current system in place. It works just fine.
How about you look into your subject a little before you bash people for being suckered by advertising when that's not the case?
How about you read into some of the examples I mentioned before you start into some uneducated barage of bullshit?
But although it is technically just one giant commercial, there is not a constant product barrage. People answering the payphones aren't getting spammed with "Buy Bungie games!" or "XBox Rulez!" because that breaks the suspension of disbelief the game (I Love Bees) has created.
The items I mentioned (Geocaching yellow jeeps, A Christmas Story, and the music cartels) have all come under the guise of something else. Yeah, when you're geocaching you pick up travel bugs. Usually they are released by other geocachers for the fun of watching them travel. These were created for the sole purpose of advertising Jeeps.
Ovaltine was sponsoring a radio story which ended in a code that you decoded with your ring. You found out the secret message only at the end of the game. Based on the reaction from the main character I'm assuming he wasn't expecting what he learned.
The music cartels love to give you what you want... Music. Lots of it. Most people have no idea it's a commercial and even if they do most people just don't care because they get their music.
The point of all of this is that even though YOU might not care it's still blatant marketing and you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. If that's ok w/you, so be it, but the parent shouldn't bitch that the rest of us don't care for it.
I'm not sure I'd lump this into the same category as pay for play and secret decoder rings.
From what I remember of the Ovaltine thing was that they listened to a story for weeks, waited for their decoder ring, all for the final wrap up so that they could decode the all important message.
All it turned out to be was a lame marketing gimick for Ovaltine...
While the final storyline message might be different the principle remains the same. You listen and listen and listen, hooked on every word, and find out that in the end you have been just been duped into buying your Ovaltine just because you're a fan of something they pay for.