If a large number of the readers here would contribute $5 to a fund, you could hire an amazing lobbyist that could actually get in congressional doors and get heard with a message.
If you all just complain, point fingers, and don't do anything, you're damn right it's only going to get worse until it crashes and burns.
Lobbyist will gladly take forward absolutely any message you want so long as they are paid. And they can get into places other than just Congress, too. They could get your message heard in agencies, state offices, etc.
You're a bunch of intelligent, opinionated people. Why on earth would you not organize a little and try to make a difference in the place where U.S. government funding for science is determined?
You honestly can make a difference if you use the rights tools to get heard. (Trust me, having worked briefly on the Hill, nothing gets attention like a flood of emails and calls on a topic or a really good lobbyist coming in the door with a lot of people behind them.)
Exactly! The techniques being taught to these folks is no different in general than those taught to people in loss-prevention jobs in every reasonably large store in many countries. What, you think there aren't people in department stores and so on watching people? Watching people's expressions, body language, etc., has been a part of law enforcement of many kinds for as long as there's been laws to enforce. I definitely prefer a live person to an algorithm in a system alerting guards that my walking path has been suspicious because I kept circling the same area (looking for my earring that just fell on the floor).
Besides, this is old news. This was being mentioned in 2004 during the time of the CAPPS II and TIA stuff.
Ok, everyone seems to be mixing two different things. This article is talking about the WHTI card. This is completely different than a full passport, and is being designed mainly to be used by people in cars driving across borders, hence the 20ft reading capability. It's supposed to help with long lines at some of the places where the wait can be a couple hours usually. There's a fact sheet available at: http://cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/fact_sheets/travel/whti_state_factsheet.ctt/whti_state_factsheet.doc
Yeah, it can be read for 20ft away. So spend $5 and buy a better cover/case for it so you don't have to worry about it.
The U.S. passport rfid is supposedly designed so that the antenna won't broadcast when the cover is closed, and even when it does broadcast it's for a much smaller range. (as in inches)
I'm not defending this and saying it's perfect. I'm simply saying people should figure out what they're griping about so I don't have to read pages of complaints about the wrong dang thing.
One of the key differences is that if it's a company pulling your credit record, you have the Fair Information Use practices on your side. You're allowed to know they pulled it, what information they got, how long they are going to store it, and make corrections if what they have is wrong.
The government currently, to the best of my knowledge, still is not subject to those practices when they pull your credit record under the auspices of the Patriot Act.
This was one of the problems with the CAPPS II program that TSA wanted to run. Part of the profiling they were wanting to do was a credit check. Supposedly it was to check to see if you had an established history in the U.S., which made you less likely to be a terrorist here for just one job. However, there were no privacy safeguards whatsoever and you as a citizen would not only not have known that it was done but would also have had no recourse to correct information, etc.
Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and Why by Peter Post -- available through Amazon and in most decent bookstore chains
I picked this up to have a laugh at a book written by a MAN about manners. I ended up being extremely impressed by how easy it read, how much work had gone into asking women what mattered and why, and how it really did try to focus on useful things. This is not the "how to address a letter to a visiting dignitary" book, but has really useful things like how to handle introducing your girlfriend/date/intended to your family members and how to handle some of those "loaded questions" that women are so good at asking.
And any geek worth his salt can read this many words in an afternoon or evening.;-)
Do you really, really WANT the DHS folks setting standards for this type of stuff?
I know there's DNSSEC work going on in the IETF... Think NIST is involved (at least their IT Lab's annual report says they are).
Anyone know how well this work is progressing?
Ok, in theory going to something other than SMTP is a good idea. Its the reality and practicality of it that hangs everything up.
No one with the authority to say, "We're all going to use..." can agree on which new thing to use. The battles on this are currently raging, but its not finished yet. Beyond that, there is very little hard research on the robustness of the different alternatives. For example, exactly how difficult is it to "break" these new methods?
Add to this debate about what to use instead of SMTP the general lack of knowledge, or caring, on the part of the average home or small business user, interoperability issues with the different methods being debated, any real-world cost of resources to distribute/set-up/operate/train people on new things, international boundaries/jurisdiction issues... You get a very difficult mix of technological, political, and social science issues to "use something other than SMTP."
I was doing research in a Senate office when this was a hot topic last summer. One of the things that was being looked at was having CAPPS check into the credit records of people to see things like: Do they have a long credit history in this country? Do they have a mortgage, car loan, student loans? These sorts of questions were supposed to help screen for people who had only been in the country for a very limited time and living in a more "limited" fashion.
There were, as you can imagine, an insane number of troubles and issues with this approach. And our office was one of the ones that screamed bloody murder over these issues.
I work in an office involved with the press conference. Its real enough that DARPA wants US$3 million to continue it, and it was originally slated to become a piece of TIA.
Aren't you just so glad that Poindexter is in charge of the department that comes up with such useful ideas?
As several people have noted, flooding Hatch's office with email and phone calls will have some small effect, but not too much since most of the people doing so probably aren't his constituents.
However, every Senator's office keeps track of things like phone calls and letters. If you write or call YOUR Senators, and politely express that you want to go on the record that you don't want any support given to Hatch on anything that involves these computer destroying ideas, then you have gotten to the ears of the people that Hatch will need to convince to help him.
If enough messages are received, staffers will remember it when they may have to vote on something. Take away his support base.
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If a large number of the readers here would contribute $5 to a fund, you could hire an amazing lobbyist that could actually get in congressional doors and get heard with a message.
If you all just complain, point fingers, and don't do anything, you're damn right it's only going to get worse until it crashes and burns.
Lobbyist will gladly take forward absolutely any message you want so long as they are paid. And they can get into places other than just Congress, too. They could get your message heard in agencies, state offices, etc.
You're a bunch of intelligent, opinionated people. Why on earth would you not organize a little and try to make a difference in the place where U.S. government funding for science is determined?
You honestly can make a difference if you use the rights tools to get heard. (Trust me, having worked briefly on the Hill, nothing gets attention like a flood of emails and calls on a topic or a really good lobbyist coming in the door with a lot of people behind them.)
Besides, this is old news. This was being mentioned in 2004 during the time of the CAPPS II and TIA stuff.
Yeah, it can be read for 20ft away. So spend $5 and buy a better cover/case for it so you don't have to worry about it.
The U.S. passport rfid is supposedly designed so that the antenna won't broadcast when the cover is closed, and even when it does broadcast it's for a much smaller range. (as in inches)
I'm not defending this and saying it's perfect. I'm simply saying people should figure out what they're griping about so I don't have to read pages of complaints about the wrong dang thing.
One of the key differences is that if it's a company pulling your credit record, you have the Fair Information Use practices on your side. You're allowed to know they pulled it, what information they got, how long they are going to store it, and make corrections if what they have is wrong.
The government currently, to the best of my knowledge, still is not subject to those practices when they pull your credit record under the auspices of the Patriot Act.
This was one of the problems with the CAPPS II program that TSA wanted to run. Part of the profiling they were wanting to do was a credit check. Supposedly it was to check to see if you had an established history in the U.S., which made you less likely to be a terrorist here for just one job. However, there were no privacy safeguards whatsoever and you as a citizen would not only not have known that it was done but would also have had no recourse to correct information, etc.
I picked this up to have a laugh at a book written by a MAN about manners. I ended up being extremely impressed by how easy it read, how much work had gone into asking women what mattered and why, and how it really did try to focus on useful things. This is not the "how to address a letter to a visiting dignitary" book, but has really useful things like how to handle introducing your girlfriend/date/intended to your family members and how to handle some of those "loaded questions" that women are so good at asking.
And any geek worth his salt can read this many words in an afternoon or evening. ;-)
I said "setting standards" and nothing about policing or enforcement.
I know there's DNSSEC work going on in the IETF... Think NIST is involved (at least their IT Lab's annual report says they are). Anyone know how well this work is progressing?
No one with the authority to say, "We're all going to use..." can agree on which new thing to use. The battles on this are currently raging, but its not finished yet. Beyond that, there is very little hard research on the robustness of the different alternatives. For example, exactly how difficult is it to "break" these new methods?
Add to this debate about what to use instead of SMTP the general lack of knowledge, or caring, on the part of the average home or small business user, interoperability issues with the different methods being debated, any real-world cost of resources to distribute/set-up/operate/train people on new things, international boundaries/jurisdiction issues ... You get a very difficult mix of technological, political, and social science issues to "use something other than SMTP."
There were, as you can imagine, an insane number of troubles and issues with this approach. And our office was one of the ones that screamed bloody murder over these issues.
Aren't you just so glad that Poindexter is in charge of the department that comes up with such useful ideas?
LE
However, every Senator's office keeps track of things like phone calls and letters. If you write or call YOUR Senators, and politely express that you want to go on the record that you don't want any support given to Hatch on anything that involves these computer destroying ideas, then you have gotten to the ears of the people that Hatch will need to convince to help him.
If enough messages are received, staffers will remember it when they may have to vote on something. Take away his support base.
temporarily from the Hill -- LE