every DVD that you buy puts money in the pockets of the MPAA to argue that source code is not protected by the First Amendment.
I couldn't have put it better myself. When you push this standard, you push the adoption of the region-encoded DVD player. We're at war against the adoption of this standard right now - the MPAA has not won yet. It is important that the word is spread - buying a DVD player, bringing this standard into your home, is a step towards a world where they know what you read, when you read it and they control who reads what.
Make no mistake, DVD technology in its current form is a tool for consumer control. Don't be the product.
For god's sake, stop pushing this Orwellian shit on slashdot.
Carl Segan is rolling in his grave. "And they controlled the masses with billions and billions of encrypted keys..."
It could have done a better job addressing the primary Microsoft strategy towards open standards:
embrace, extend, destroy.
1: Embrace: fund the standard (perl, kerberos) and make it a vital part of your OS. Get a large user base to follow you.
2: Extend: create "extensions" to the standard which are trade secrets, which no one else can implement.
3: Destroy: Leverage your userbase, using your new extensions, to destroy the old userbase. The standard is now closed.
This is a very difficult strategy to implement, and Microsoft is a master at it. Don't say they don't know how to innovate- they are brilliant criminals. Look at the AARD detection code! A self-modifying, debugger-defeating virus built into an OS. Now that's innovation!
The point here is that Open Standards are not enough. Microsoft has a lot of brilliant developers, and even if you have a nice open standard, it doesn't help if Microsoft releases a new "open standard" - government approved, mind you - every week. This is called "churn", and it means introducing artificially new technology every two years (95, 98, 2000, blah blah, new paperclip) and forcing your users to upgrade (subscription model). If you can develop new open standards faster than the world can keep up, you've beaten this system.
Never underestimate Microsoft. The world is littered with the corpses of companies that did.
So Congress has just allocated a ton of money so that the teachers who can't get the VCR to stop blinking 12:00 can use software to control the students who help them program the VCR for class movies.
Oh, you bet.
If I were in high school right now I'd have the octal version of goatse.cx memorized.
yes, you can solve for x - i was not trying to say that the fibonacci problem can't be solved better, i was just trying to come up with a trivial example of a problem that must be solved in a linear/sequential fashion. i probably could have done better if i'd thought about it, but this is slashdot... i try to play by the rules... post first, think later.
(-;
cool page though! can you come up with a problem that must be solved in an entirely linear fashion? (that can't be memoized or divided into a search space)?
i'm sitting here trying to remember one from algorithms and i can't, and it's starting to drive me nuts. (:
i claim that distributing the adding gains you nothing but delay, since each adding node must wait for another node across the network to complete before it begins its operation.
Yes, Win2000 has it, and it may even return to the mainstream, some 10 odd years later.
My point was that Citrix, PCAnywhere, and all that stuff aside, there's no free, standardized, widespread remote login for windows. It's an invisible capability to 90+% of the windows userbase. Which wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the fact that aging computers from 10 years ago (unix) have this capability built in.
How many Win2000 users are using their home desktop from work?
The airship shouldn't have died? The slide rule? Slide rules are great, but they don't run Pac-Man anywhere near as well as my HP48sx.
Seriously, what about some of the great ones? Betamax, or Sony's 8mm wallet-sized videotapes?
What about remote GUI login? Unix had it, and Windows never caught up (no, pc anywhere doesn't count). People still don't know that they should be able to log into their home computers wherever they are.
What about guns? Colts are collectors items not because they're old but because they're the best revolvers ever made. Today's guns suck by comparison - the tolerances are way down, machined rather than hand matched.
IBM's butterfly notebook?
actually playing music on MTV?
we should do a slashdot article and pick the 10 best abandoned technologies. these don't even come close.
Has anyone wondered what will happen if ad-busting software becomes mainstream? Stuff like www.junkbusters.com?
Is it possible that we could see legislation that made "devices" that would disable web ads illegal? Like an EULA for a web page that specified that turning off ads constituted "circumvention", thereby making an ad proxy an "anti-circumvention device"?
I haven't heard anything to this effect, but I'd sure love to know if anyone in the e-commerce business knows if steps are being taken to fight ad blocking software.
Internet Explorer 5 for Windows will refuse to show many web pages if the banner ad's web site is redirected to localhost. Try it - set ad.doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1 on a window's box's hosts file, then try to load yahoo. you get a blank page.
Isn't this trend towards faster supercomputers being driven by advances in Computer Science, rather than Engineering?
Remember the Cray Y-MP? Used to be the world's fastest computers were designed to be extremely fast CPU's, built as a sphere to shorten contact length and liquid-cooled. Parallel computing was possible then - the problem was that we couldn't break down the problems we wanted to solve into parallel events.
Today's brand of parallel supercomputers exist to solve a different kind of problem - a problem in which the "search space" can be compartmentalized and distributed- like the RSA challenge, fluid dynamics, chess, and -of course- the human genome.
The thing to remember when we read about ever-faster parallel computers is that, for all intents and purposes, when you have to solve a truly sequential problem (what the cray folks would have called a 0% vector-optimized problem) - today's supercomputers usually aren't any faster than the desktop computer you're sitting in front of. Compute the Fibbonaci sequence (without solving it for x) and race your PIII with this computer - and you might win.
Just something I wish they'd point out. We need a better adjective than faster for parallel computers. They're something else. Maybe... wider.
"The motion picture industry's effort to ban computer code that subverts its DVD encryption scheme"
subvert (sb-vûrt)
v. tr. subverted, subverting, subverts.
- To destroy completely; ruin:
- To undermine the character, morals, or allegiance of; corrupt.
- To overthrow completely: "Economic assistance . . . must subvert the existing . . . feudal or tribal order" (Henry A. Kissinger).
So, in context:
The motion picture industry's effort to ban computer code that undermines the morals of its DVD encryption scheme.
Playing a movie on Linux hardly destroys it, or subverts its morals. When will this press bias end? DeCSS is is part of the development of an open project to play DVDs. The fact that playing DVD's may expose them to copying is an artifact of the DVD-CCA's decision to blend play protection and copy protection.
After all, all this pill does is simulate something we can do quite well on our own with a bit of willpower - eat less.
Actually no, if you read the article, it does something quite different, it slows down the speed with which you metabolize what you eat:
"The researchers discovered that it directs cells to make a protein that is in membranes and helps move nutrients into cells. The protein is concentrated in places where nutrients are absorbed and utilized."
The difference is that you metabolize your meals more slowly, so you feel hungry less and have a more consistent energy level. It has nothing to do with the rate at which you eat, but rather the rate at which your metabolism "eats", which cannot be controlled by any diet (except perhaps limited high glycemic-index carbs)
My guess is you already knew that, and were just trying to stir up trouble. But who knows.
Server says, "tell me the byte at offset 98761534" and if client answers wrong, then server doesn't send the music.
Your point is valid. Some people have pointed out that they couldn't store all those cd's uncompressed, but that is a shallow argument as they actually could, but don't have to, just have to remember a few questions like the one you posed per cd.
My reason for thinking this won't happen is that cd's are re-mastered and released with the same cover art all the time. There's no version control, and no way to ensure that "sign" by led zeppelin has, as you put it, "oxfffcda5 at offset 59834". There could be fifty different masters of that cd, all with different bytes at different offsets, but the same songs.
Of course, they could ignore this problem, making the system ever more unusable. Which would seem to be in their best interest. So good point, I didn't think of that.
Slashdot:
you'll have to reinsert CDs at random and periodic intervals to prove ownership.
Nytimes:
To deter users from borrowing CD's that they have not purchased to store in their MP3.com "locker," a small number of the CD's will have to be reinserted at certain intervals,
Ok, do we have any backup on the claim that the interval is random? This could just mean you have to put the cd's back in every month.
Keep in mind that only the client side can enforce this, and therefore that Hackmymp3.exe is going to be out in weeks to remove this. Of course, the DMCA makes it harder to distribute tools like this.
You'll have to post them anonymously to slashdot as source (:
My flock, divided and driven to the wind, much suffering have you endured. Your pain, your anguish, all have come unto me. Today is the day that our brethren shall remember, the day that our ancestors will look upon from beyond the mortal coil and be proud.
Today is the day of unification.
Those of you who useth the APT, rejoice!
Those of you who useth the RPM, rejoice!
There shall be packages and free software for all. Dead is the failed symbolic link. Dead is the day of open software from a heretic distribution. Look around, and be filled with our common strength. United, good shall reign upon the earth, and there will be no fscking.
Boy, is my face red. Years of bitching about assholes who couldn't spot humour that wasn't accompanied by myriad smilies, and I go ahead and do the self-same thing.
By way of explanation - if not mitigation - I humbly offer as evidence the googols of comments of the nature outlined and ask, if not for forgiveness, then at least for a modicum of understanding.
Heh, an apology on slashdot. I'm about to faint.
I just felt that the "darth" link was intolerant and not at all funny, so I took a pot shot at it. Unfortunately for me, I never tell people when I'm being a smartass.
No sweat man. BTW thanks for posting that link yesterday to the Forbes article, it was a great read.
Anyway, this is a "quickies" article, so I figure why be serious.
BTW I got a dollar says someone is gonna mod you down as "offtopic" for apologizing.
That's funny, but it's also pretty sad. I can't be the only person here who found the page not only not unamusing but also really intolerant. I'm sure that the gay readership of Slashdot is offended by such poor humor at their expense. There's no way this link would have been posted if it were making fun of Vader as being black or Jewish.
NO SHIT IT'S OFFENSIVE. Thank you for actually getting my joke, you clueful wonderful person you!
Yes, it's that bad combination of offensive and not funny. I didn't want to beat everyone over the head with this, so I tried to make them laugh about it. Oh well.
This sort of 'ironicly pointing out slashdot's shocking hyprocisy' comment is becoming more and more popular.
Well actually I was just kidding. No attempt at either irony or hypocrisy. Sorry. Wasn't trying to jump on the irony/hypocrisy bandwagon.
I've had some of my most insightful comments (IMO, natch) marked down as trolls.
Me too. Fun ain't it. That's what makes meta-mod so much fun, waiting for the day you can catch those folks.
You really don't see any difference between a one-line 'Darth Vader is a Gay Sadomasochist' posted on a discussion about bandwidth and a web page
Did I say I couldn't tell the difference? That's my bad. I'll just clear that up now. I can tell the difference.
I have to post something like this every once in a while, to get my karma down from max. Otherwise it's always maxed out, and that's boring.
They'll get this post too. "Offtopic" is my guess, or maybe "overrated". Not that it is offtopic, but if you don't care about finding good posts in a worthwhile discussion somewhere, and prefer to hunt for people to negatively moderate, i'm probably a fun target.
I'm pretty sure that the FBI actually would prefer to follow procedures to make sure that information is gathered in a legal manner that does not infringe on citizens' righs.
Waco.
Ruby Ridge.
Steve Jackson Games.
Martial Law in Seattle.
$1,000,000 bond for using a cellphone at the RNC.
bullfuckingshit
I'm pretty sure the FBI would like to take anyone who knows anything about a computer into a bathroom and rape them with a plunger handle, New York style. I think that's the major difference in our viewpoints - I don't trust the government. Mainly because I've worked for them.
But I respect your opinion. And the fact that you will continue a conversation well past the moderation window. (:
Ok, sorry that that/. article had the Cringley link in it, and let me just say that i am not defending cringley. Yes, it's a read-only tap; yes, it can only handle a few data streams at a time; yes, it's storage capacity is extremely limited.
And yes, there are only 20 carnivore boxes in existence right now, so a national deployment is impossible.
What I was pointing out was that if one national ISP was refusing to install Carnivore, then they were all going to be asked to. Nobody rolls out an alpha system for nation wide release - but it's pretty evident that once in place, Carnivores are not removed. This makes sense - they're difficult to install.
My point was simply this: once there's a Carnivore in every ISP in the nation, they can selectively turn them on when they need to listen to someone. And while the law requires them to get a court order, the carnivore has no accounting whatsoever, so we'll never really know what they're listening to. And neither will the ISP's.
This is a teriffic list of scenarios. Much props
VValdo.
I'll try a few more, though those are tough to beat.
I'm a university student at Yale in the year 2010. Yale distributes all their books on a single DVD, which has an access control mechanism to prevent students from using the book during periods when they are not enrolled. I am blind, but the company that provides Yale's antibooks doesn't have text-to-speech capability. My enrollment is deferred while they wait for text-to speech.
I'm a university student at Yale in the year 2010. Yale distributes all their books on a single DVD, which has an access control mechanism to prevent students from using the book during periods when they are not enrolled. During my internship, I break the copy protection to try to sneak in a little extra studying. I am caught, and imprisoned for 10 years under the DMCA.
The year is 2006, and nobody really has a VCR anymore. I've been making single-off, low-budget films for years - about 100 at a time. I used to make them on VHS, but I can't afford a DVD-CCA license, and my audience is increasingly complaining that they don't own VCR's. What do I do?.
The awesome Arnold Schwarnegger movie, "Conan the Librarian - 2002", is released exclusively on DVD in 2002. It includes a 20 minute long advertisement for the 2002 Toyota Camry which cannot be skipped. The year is 2065, and I'm showing my grandson the movie. He keeps asking me what a "car" is.
Slashdot Mirror
every DVD that you buy puts money in the pockets of the MPAA to argue that source code is not protected by the First Amendment.
I couldn't have put it better myself. When you push this standard, you push the adoption of the region-encoded DVD player. We're at war against the adoption of this standard right now - the MPAA has not won yet. It is important that the word is spread - buying a DVD player, bringing this standard into your home, is a step towards a world where they know what you read, when you read it and they control who reads what.
Make no mistake, DVD technology in its current form is a tool for consumer control. Don't be the product.
For god's sake, stop pushing this Orwellian shit on slashdot.
Carl Segan is rolling in his grave. "And they controlled the masses with billions and billions of encrypted keys..."
...and a very well written paper.
It could have done a better job addressing the primary Microsoft strategy towards open standards:
embrace, extend, destroy.
1: Embrace: fund the standard (perl, kerberos) and make it a vital part of your OS. Get a large user base to follow you.
2: Extend: create "extensions" to the standard which are trade secrets, which no one else can implement.
3: Destroy: Leverage your userbase, using your new extensions, to destroy the old userbase. The standard is now closed.
This is a very difficult strategy to implement, and Microsoft is a master at it. Don't say they don't know how to innovate- they are brilliant criminals. Look at the AARD detection code! A self-modifying, debugger-defeating virus built into an OS. Now that's innovation!
The point here is that Open Standards are not enough. Microsoft has a lot of brilliant developers, and even if you have a nice open standard, it doesn't help if Microsoft releases a new "open standard" - government approved, mind you - every week. This is called "churn", and it means introducing artificially new technology every two years (95, 98, 2000, blah blah, new paperclip) and forcing your users to upgrade (subscription model). If you can develop new open standards faster than the world can keep up, you've beaten this system.
Never underestimate Microsoft. The world is littered with the corpses of companies that did.
So Congress has just allocated a ton of money so that the teachers who can't get the VCR to stop blinking 12:00 can use software to control the students who help them program the VCR for class movies.
Oh, you bet.
If I were in high school right now I'd have the octal version of goatse.cx memorized.
Suckers.
yes, you can solve for x - i was not trying to say that the fibonacci problem can't be solved better, i was just trying to come up with a trivial example of a problem that must be solved in a linear/sequential fashion. i probably could have done better if i'd thought about it, but this is slashdot... i try to play by the rules... post first, think later.
(-;
cool page though! can you come up with a problem that must be solved in an entirely linear fashion? (that can't be memoized or divided into a search space)?
i'm sitting here trying to remember one from algorithms and i can't, and it's starting to drive me nuts. (:
i claim that distributing the adding gains you nothing but delay, since each adding node must wait for another node across the network to complete before it begins its operation.
or maybe i missed something?
Yes, Win2000 has it, and it may even return to the mainstream, some 10 odd years later.
My point was that Citrix, PCAnywhere, and all that stuff aside, there's no free, standardized, widespread remote login for windows. It's an invisible capability to 90+% of the windows userbase. Which wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the fact that aging computers from 10 years ago (unix) have this capability built in.
How many Win2000 users are using their home desktop from work?
The airship shouldn't have died? The slide rule? Slide rules are great, but they don't run Pac-Man anywhere near as well as my HP48sx.
Seriously, what about some of the great ones? Betamax, or Sony's 8mm wallet-sized videotapes?
What about remote GUI login? Unix had it, and Windows never caught up (no, pc anywhere doesn't count). People still don't know that they should be able to log into their home computers wherever they are.
What about guns? Colts are collectors items not because they're old but because they're the best revolvers ever made. Today's guns suck by comparison - the tolerances are way down, machined rather than hand matched.
IBM's butterfly notebook?
actually playing music on MTV?
we should do a slashdot article and pick the 10 best abandoned technologies. these don't even come close.
Has anyone wondered what will happen if ad-busting software becomes mainstream? Stuff like www.junkbusters.com?
Is it possible that we could see legislation that made "devices" that would disable web ads illegal? Like an EULA for a web page that specified that turning off ads constituted "circumvention", thereby making an ad proxy an "anti-circumvention device"?
I haven't heard anything to this effect, but I'd sure love to know if anyone in the e-commerce business knows if steps are being taken to fight ad blocking software.
Internet Explorer 5 for Windows will refuse to show many web pages if the banner ad's web site is redirected to localhost. Try it - set ad.doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1 on a window's box's hosts file, then try to load yahoo. you get a blank page.
Isn't this trend towards faster supercomputers being driven by advances in Computer Science, rather than Engineering?
Remember the Cray Y-MP? Used to be the world's fastest computers were designed to be extremely fast CPU's, built as a sphere to shorten contact length and liquid-cooled. Parallel computing was possible then - the problem was that we couldn't break down the problems we wanted to solve into parallel events.
Today's brand of parallel supercomputers exist to solve a different kind of problem - a problem in which the "search space" can be compartmentalized and distributed- like the RSA challenge, fluid dynamics, chess, and -of course- the human genome.
The thing to remember when we read about ever-faster parallel computers is that, for all intents and purposes, when you have to solve a truly sequential problem (what the cray folks would have called a 0% vector-optimized problem) - today's supercomputers usually aren't any faster than the desktop computer you're sitting in front of. Compute the Fibbonaci sequence (without solving it for x) and race your PIII with this computer - and you might win.
Just something I wish they'd point out. We need a better adjective than faster for parallel computers. They're something else. Maybe... wider.
Suggestions?
"The motion picture industry's effort to ban computer code that subverts its DVD encryption scheme"
subvert (sb-vûrt)
v. tr. subverted, subverting, subverts.
- To destroy completely; ruin:
- To undermine the character, morals, or allegiance of; corrupt.
- To overthrow completely: "Economic assistance . . . must subvert the existing . . . feudal or tribal order" (Henry A. Kissinger).
So, in context:
The motion picture industry's effort to ban computer code that undermines the morals of its DVD encryption scheme.
Playing a movie on Linux hardly destroys it, or subverts its morals. When will this press bias end? DeCSS is is part of the development of an open project to play DVDs. The fact that playing DVD's may expose them to copying is an artifact of the DVD-CCA's decision to blend play protection and copy protection.
We should all politely remind Mr. Hansen to read openDVD's fact sheet before press time.
sigh!
After all, all this pill does is simulate something we can do quite well on our own with a bit of willpower - eat less.
Actually no, if you read the article, it does something quite different, it slows down the speed with which you metabolize what you eat:
"The researchers discovered that it directs cells to make a protein that is in membranes and helps move nutrients into cells. The protein is concentrated in places where nutrients are absorbed and utilized."
The difference is that you metabolize your meals more slowly, so you feel hungry less and have a more consistent energy level. It has nothing to do with the rate at which you eat, but rather the rate at which your metabolism "eats", which cannot be controlled by any diet (except perhaps limited high glycemic-index carbs)
My guess is you already knew that, and were just trying to stir up trouble. But who knows.
Wonder if they're going to go after the misspellings too, like Yahoo.com going after Yaho.com and Yehoo.com.
...because they're in for a shock when they go after femdom.com.
heeh!
Server says, "tell me the byte at offset 98761534" and if client answers wrong, then server doesn't send the music.
Your point is valid. Some people have pointed out that they couldn't store all those cd's uncompressed, but that is a shallow argument as they actually could, but don't have to, just have to remember a few questions like the one you posed per cd.
My reason for thinking this won't happen is that cd's are re-mastered and released with the same cover art all the time. There's no version control, and no way to ensure that "sign" by led zeppelin has, as you put it, "oxfffcda5 at offset 59834". There could be fifty different masters of that cd, all with different bytes at different offsets, but the same songs.
Of course, they could ignore this problem, making the system ever more unusable. Which would seem to be in their best interest. So good point, I didn't think of that.
Slashdot:
you'll have to reinsert CDs at random and periodic intervals to prove ownership.
Nytimes:
To deter users from borrowing CD's that they have not purchased to store in their MP3.com "locker," a small number of the CD's will have to be reinserted at certain intervals,
Ok, do we have any backup on the claim that the interval is random? This could just mean you have to put the cd's back in every month.
Keep in mind that only the client side can enforce this, and therefore that Hackmymp3.exe is going to be out in weeks to remove this. Of course, the DMCA makes it harder to distribute tools like this.
You'll have to post them anonymously to slashdot as source (:
At least I'm not alone:
Intended to be installed at every Internet service provider in the country,
-suck.com. We should write them and ask them for their source.
Jay Satiro, 19, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Westchester County Court to first-degree computer tampering. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
The average prison time served after conviction for homicide, willful murder, is 5 years, 11 months.
First degree computer tampering? A 19 year old with obvious talent belongs in federal prison. You bet.
The greatest crime you can commit in America is first degree curiousity.
My flock, divided and driven to the wind, much suffering have you endured. Your pain, your anguish, all have come unto me. Today is the day that our brethren shall remember, the day that our ancestors will look upon from beyond the mortal coil and be proud.
Today is the day of unification.
Those of you who useth the APT, rejoice!
Those of you who useth the RPM, rejoice!
There shall be packages and free software for all. Dead is the failed symbolic link. Dead is the day of open software from a heretic distribution. Look around, and be filled with our common strength. United, good shall reign upon the earth, and there will be no fscking.
So sayeth the king!
And there was much rejoicing.
Boy, is my face red. Years of bitching about assholes who couldn't spot humour that wasn't accompanied by myriad smilies, and I go ahead and do the self-same thing.
By way of explanation - if not mitigation - I humbly offer as evidence the googols of comments of the nature outlined and ask, if not for forgiveness, then at least for a modicum of understanding.
Heh, an apology on slashdot. I'm about to faint.
I just felt that the "darth" link was intolerant and not at all funny, so I took a pot shot at it. Unfortunately for me, I never tell people when I'm being a smartass.
No sweat man. BTW thanks for posting that link yesterday to the Forbes article, it was a great read.
Anyway, this is a "quickies" article, so I figure why be serious.
BTW I got a dollar says someone is gonna mod you down as "offtopic" for apologizing.
That's funny, but it's also pretty sad. I can't be the only person here who found the page not only not unamusing but also really intolerant. I'm sure that the gay readership of Slashdot is offended by such poor humor at their expense. There's no way this link would have been posted if it were making fun of Vader as being black or Jewish.
NO SHIT IT'S OFFENSIVE. Thank you for actually getting my joke, you clueful wonderful person you!
Yes, it's that bad combination of offensive and not funny. I didn't want to beat everyone over the head with this, so I tried to make them laugh about it. Oh well.
This sort of 'ironicly pointing out slashdot's shocking hyprocisy' comment is becoming more and more popular.
Well actually I was just kidding. No attempt at either irony or hypocrisy. Sorry. Wasn't trying to jump on the irony/hypocrisy bandwagon.
I've had some of my most insightful comments (IMO, natch) marked down as trolls.
Me too. Fun ain't it. That's what makes meta-mod so much fun, waiting for the day you can catch those folks.
You really don't see any difference between a one-line 'Darth Vader is a Gay Sadomasochist' posted on a discussion about bandwidth and a web page
Did I say I couldn't tell the difference? That's my bad. I'll just clear that up now. I can tell the difference.
I have to post something like this every once in a while, to get my karma down from max. Otherwise it's always maxed out, and that's boring.
They'll get this post too. "Offtopic" is my guess, or maybe "overrated". Not that it is offtopic, but if you don't care about finding good posts in a worthwhile discussion somewhere, and prefer to hunt for people to negatively moderate, i'm probably a fun target.
sigh, back to work.
Call Darth Vader a gay sadomasochist in a comment and you get nailed as a Troll.
Call Darth Vader a gay sadomasochist on a web page and you get a story on slashdot.
Maybe I'll make a web page saying that Darth Vader is a Gay sadomasochist Troll, and see if I make the front page...
I'm pretty sure that the FBI actually would prefer to follow procedures to make sure that information is gathered in a legal manner that does not infringe on citizens' righs.
Waco.
Ruby Ridge.
Steve Jackson Games.
Martial Law in Seattle.
$1,000,000 bond for using a cellphone at the RNC.
bullfucking shit
I'm pretty sure the FBI would like to take anyone who knows anything about a computer into a bathroom and rape them with a plunger handle, New York style. I think that's the major difference in our viewpoints - I don't trust the government. Mainly because I've worked for them.
But I respect your opinion. And the fact that you will continue a conversation well past the moderation window. (:
hats off,
-mwalker
Ok, sorry that that /. article had the Cringley link in it, and let me just say that i am not defending cringley. Yes, it's a read-only tap; yes, it can only handle a few data streams at a time; yes, it's storage capacity is extremely limited.
And yes, there are only 20 carnivore boxes in existence right now, so a national deployment is impossible.
What I was pointing out was that if one national ISP was refusing to install Carnivore, then they were all going to be asked to. Nobody rolls out an alpha system for nation wide release - but it's pretty evident that once in place, Carnivores are not removed. This makes sense - they're difficult to install.
My point was simply this: once there's a Carnivore in every ISP in the nation, they can selectively turn them on when they need to listen to someone. And while the law requires them to get a court order, the carnivore has no accounting whatsoever, so we'll never really know what they're listening to. And neither will the ISP's.
That's all.
VValdo.
I'll try a few more, though those are tough to beat.
Does this mean that http://911 will get me the police? This will bring trolling to a whole new level.
Ugh.