Guess it just seems to me the infighting of who the heir is made this whole "War" between which religion is better (Judiasm and Islam). Guess they'll never read the Koran, which actually says once Abraham is dead, the 2 sons gather and reconcile their differences.
Sometimes, it seems that nobody really learns from the bible. They just parrot it as a thought-weapon to inflict damage. Or worse yet, they call Jesus (in terms of Christians) and make it seem that He allys with whatever that person wants.
I normally dont correct spelling errors, but you have Libel wrong.
Libel is "publication in the written word knowingly false things".
Liable is being "legally obligated".
In your case, car companies MUST check for the State permission to drive (as state roads surround them). If they do not check, they are Liable because they were legally obligated and did not do so.
True. You have to combine lens irregularity, packed-ness of the sensors on the camera (like for CCD's) and other real-world quality reducing effects.
Just most people just dont get the difference between analog data and digital data. Just saying analog data is like infinite bitrate is easier and get sthe point across (without the esoterics).
Perhaps the Media Companies really DO get it, but dont want to lets us know they do..
Still, I wonder exactly what scheme they use to play these.. And, if I work out the numbers...
100 GB for 2 hours. Thats 7200 seconds.
We dont know if thats GB or GiB, so lets assume its GB. 100GB/7200sec or 1 GB per 72 seconds. Thats about 13.9MB per second for all sound channels and video.
If they really do spend THAT much on making vinal film, why not instead hook up to a fiber optic network and transmit ALL films to a server at the theater?
Wow, I just found 4 of his books, in complete form. Looks like that reporter didnt do his job very well at all. And Im sure, if I looked more, I'd find more of his works.
One thing I did notoice is that retard-of-a-reporter looked at the 'purty' pictures on top of Google. The second link gives a lonk to the life of Bacon the Philosopher.
Yet another battle between haves and have-nots
on
FUD-Based Encyclopedias
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Except the have-nots are the people who refuse to embrace the internet themselves.
The paper-based encyclopedias are dying fairly rapidly, as I can check the search engines and find many, many sources of information.
Lets do one, shall we... Phrase: Underground Railroad.
1: I get a map thrumbnail showing paths on the Underground Railroad
2: The amount of material gleaned on just the metadata and the URL. See below.
____________ Underground Railroad--History of Slavery, Pictures, Information You are a slave in Maryland in the 1800s. Can you escape? Learn what challenges slaves faced in National Geographic's Underground Railroad adventure. Get information... www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/ - 5k - Cached - Similar pages
Underground Railroad--History of Slavery, Pictures, Information
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD CONTENTS....
www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/j1.html - 8k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.nationalgeographic.com ]
Aboard the Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad refers to the effort--sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized--to assist persons held in bondage in North America to escape... www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/ - 8k - Cached - Similar pages
The Underground Railroad Site - Table of Contents The Underground Railroad Table of Contents. - This site is no longer maintained!... Some Things About the Underground Railroad: What was the Underground Railroad? education.ucdavis.edu/NEW/ STC/lesson/socstud/railroad/contents.htm - 6k - Cached - Similar pages
Harriet Tubman and The Underground Railroad for Children Click here to go back to Pocantico Hills School. Harriet Tubman & The Underground Railroad.... Thanks for taking our trip on the Underground Railroad! www2.lhric.org/pocantico/tubman/tubman. html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages ___________
If I had no clue, North America, Black, Escape, Harriet Tubman, and much more.
And those who would say "The Encyclopedias check data for us more than we'll ever need to", well.. Look at the 1'st link. Would you consider National Geographic, or then many many colleges to have non-factual information?
Tsk tsk. I await for the death of our past information-controlling overlords.
Wow, only 30$ an hour? Boy are you selling yourself short.
Second, common Linux problems are already solved. Just search google for the "problem" and there'll be 10 or more people with the same and solutions to try.
If you really need a solution, you either make it yourself or find like-minded people and change similar software to do what you need.
Ok. MP3's and uncompressed WAVs are "undiscernable". Bullshit.
Compare Grieg's "Song of Petersburg" from lossless wav to 24kbit mono MP3. Can you hear the difference?
Ok, thats not a fair test. Of course you were talking about a high quality MP3, perhaps 256kbit full stereo MP3. ok...
Do you have a home theater setup? Go slot a disc holding that MP3 (the 256 kbit one) and listen to it and compare it to the wav... You can discern the difference. There's things missing from the mp3 when you "magnify" it to the high quality equipment.. Just as you can see artifacts when you watch Dish-Network feeds on a 1024i widescreen. Normally you dont see em, but every so often, you see the blockies..
When I say I can discern the difference, it's because I know many many pieces. I play as lead clarinet in a symphony, so I know what I "miss". When the MP3 encoding clips out the violin's harmonics (or most other instruments) I can tell most of the time. Of course somebody will say "its cause you have crap equipment" or some other audiophile crap.
For the naysayers, I say listen to a symphony by sitting in the center of the orchestra.
Heh, product activation. WHat a joke, and its on us consumers.
Good thing I use a student (Professional) version of WIn2k with no activation, serials, or other nuisances required. Just slot the disc and after X hours, its ready to roll. And I bought 3 of these discs.. 5$ each from the school bookstore.
The scheme they had on these discs reminded me of another scheme used on another set of OS discs..
Can you name another set of programs and OS that is relatively cheap (pay for media), no call home behavior, no serials, and in general things mostly work..
---oh ok, but what if you just get a bunch of your friends who are proven to say that im that otehr guy?
The frinds have to be authenticated, usually by birth certificate AND a photo ID. They MUST be identified and noted.
They then testify in front of a judge that person X is, and has been a citizen of this country. Things like friends and family are taken into account, as business relationships are wanted too.
If the group testifying that the person is from (say..) the USA and wasnt, they're all put in for: Perjury, Conspiracy, Violation of Immigration Laws and many many other federal statutes. We're talking major serious jailtime.
---And how does the first guy get prooven? does it start with like the president and his family, work its way down the chain, and then hit the public? or is it one lucky guy that some gov worker belives?
Nope, they just have to be verified legit citizens of this country.
>>>In reality, the law SHOULD be that you have full access to YOUR information, and can correct provable, factual parts that are incorrect.
>Absolutely, and I would add that there should be a stiff penalty if a data aggregator denies a citizen that ability, and such denial results in a crime.
Really, after thinking about it, couldnt you sue them for libel if they refuse to correct your information? They send and receive the "written word" and it's wrong.. Damages in refusal of sales and other nefarious uses should be acceptable by the courts..
>>>I really cant answer if they should be selling this data...
>Sure you can! Think about how this came about, and where it's going.
>Originally, collecting and maintaining the so-called "credit history" on individual citizens was all about risk avoidance. That's still the case, of course. Businesses have always maintained records about past customers, so that they could then decide how, and if, to do business with said customers in the future. That's been true since we kept records carved on rocks or stamped in clay.
All too true. And when sales have delayed payments, bonds of trust MUST be made. These bonds should go both ways, but in practice, the consumer gets screwed as many have little or no recourse.
>The problem came in when business realized, with the advent of the mainframe, telecommunications and vast, cheap, readily-accessible storage that they could share this information with each other, thus dividing the risk. Thus was born the credit bureau. To my mind, the whole concept of the credit bureau is on ethically shaky ground anyway... do business have the right to defend themselves against the normal costs of doing business, by placing their own customers at risk? Is this a justifiable tradeoff?
This is simply put in common terms as a "Web of Trust". Right now, the scales of this trust are heavily tipped towards corporations and have been for a long time. CheckPoint are just one set of trolls guarding this 'bridge'.
The real threat is this indexes only the users, or the consumers. It's all one sided. Instead, the relationship web should cross businesses and people alike. If that was the case, people themselves could see who does and doesnt accept XYZ corporate or person, and what corporation doesnt accept XYZ users or corporations.
The best analogies I can come up with are 2 (half-assed ones): PGP public-key relationships and Orkut. Well, Slashdot relationships would be another one, but yet still incomplete.
>Given the number of lives destroyed by the credit system over the years, I'd be inclined to say no... it's usurious at best, and usury is illegal. Or used to be, at any rate.
If 2 groups(sides would be better?) of people come together, discuss a procedure or work or something substantial, and both sides agree, is that bad? Lets assume that the job being done does not affect anybody else other than the 2 stated parties (you know, like murder, kidnapping, and the like are bad).
If one side wants a house, and the other side sells, is that legal? If one side wants a warehouse, and the other side builds warehouses, is that legal? If one side needs 5000$ today for an important purchase, and the other side has very high interest(say.. 35%) but has the money now, is that legal?
Point I'm trying to make is if there is a meeting of the minds, and an agreement based on that 'meeting of the minds', why or why not would it be illegal? As long as the act in that agreement itself not against the law, what matters the payment?
>So where are we now? Well, what has changed is that the demand is no longer just for security (customer "x" wants to buy product "y", give me yes/no on the transaction) but for the actual information used to make such decisions... the financial history itself.
Ok, person P goes to a store and uses non-legal-tender like a check. Assumin
Well, Im unsure what exactly you do, but you could print some nice brochures and mail them to many businesses in the local area for a "Security Checkup". You could even successfully target businesses with outsourced IT to check up on them (like a security task force).
Offer, say, for 1000$ a full, comprehensive network, computer, data security, and personnel scan. Do the usual scare-campaign, but with a very professional slant, such as "how much would this assessment cost in compairson to legal fees?" and such.
Once youre done with the Company X's scan, then give them a comprehensive list of every 'nook and cranny' of whats wrong with their security. Itemize it, and put a price to fix there. You could come off very clean as to say "I put my prices as you wish to have somebody else fix it.
I do this when I need to.. It makes easy money for those who bite.. and it provides a very valuabe service.
---This is very interesting, but didn't ChoicePoint sell this personal information to the people that "stole" it?
I consider misleading to get information the same as hacking to get it. The only difference is that ChoicePoint was paid. Why should they care?
---The issue is that people were buying credit reporting services from choicepoint, since choicepoint is in the business of selling this data to companies. The people who stole this data just posed as real companies, and choicepoint didn't do their homework and check on the black hats' bona fidus.
Sometimes hacking has to do with throwing up a huge wall of "mistrust" and make the other party believe in something they shouldnt. Still, couldnt you claim that many "legit" companies use this data in what could be considered very improper?
Guess that brings up the question whether we should punish the company(s) or the people who do wrong...
---This is not a hacker issue; no one is claiming a computer was rooted or compromised or that some kid with a script was punching passwords into choicepoint's web site. Choicepoint was selling this data, and the they were human engineered into selling the data to people who had malign intent.
Still, this shows one of my points: Laziness. A "identity" company not checking the corporate identity. And then the people in the "evil" company do evil things.
Who's to be punished?
---The issue is wether anyone should be selling this stuff AT ALL.
Would you accept checks from somebody for medium-large amounts without checking up on who they are, and whether they've bounced checks before?
In reality, the law SHOULD be that you have full access to YOUR information, and can correct provable, factual parts that are incorrect. I really cant answer if they should be selling this data...
---So if big brother, has like all this information on us (creditcard numbers places we freq eat and stupid random intel like that), then what if THEY get hacked? Wouldnt that mean hell for everybody thats ever been in america? I could only imagine standing in line at a public school to get my friggin id back, but how would they validate whose who? if theres no pictures, oculd you just steal somebody's drivers liscence or wallet and say that your them?
Im no lawyer, but if you just _cant_ prove your identity cause XYZ documents are stolen/lost, you bring acquainances who are legitly proven and they vouch for you. People like that could be friends, family, employees, teachers...
Essentially, its like that Orkut. If you cant prove who you are, people who are proved back you up. And if they lie, its perjury and a bunch of other charges.
I do a lot of computer security work in my area, and trust me when I say that many, many places have either no or woefully inadequate security present.
One place I did a job for actually had a symbol AP in the ceiling of the factory, login: Symbol, pass: (blank) and unencrypted transfers. The domain admin acct (win2k) had no password, and guest was active. They also bungled up a RAS so that anybody that knew that number had "root".
Those were just external security issues.. It took 50 hours to barely fix their problems.
Still, problems are abound just like that: No or bad security. Many times, it has to do with plain laziness, not thinking anybody cares about us, just not knowing, or trying to do security and maintainence without understanding.
Another amazing this is how well modem-scanners work these days... Back in the day, all the security nuts cared about dial-back and other things... Now, everybody thinks of always-on internet so you need a firewall. Not so. Many machines have dialup gateways or interfaces in which most are just not configured. Even (to my knowledge, I use freeBSD and linux) Windows RAS server has dialback capability.
Now, why Congress wants to scrutnize them, well.. Wonder if they've secured THEIR wireless network since I was in DC...
Wow, you sure do make some hair-brained assumptions.
1: Life does exist outside of Earth. 2: Mars has life. 3: Our immune system cannot adapt to (possible) extraterrestrial microbes. 4: The microbes would have the similar makeup of chemistry to interface with Earth Chemistry.
Of course you have an interesting.. You made up plenty of stuff. Lets find some microbes and then make wild-ass guesses.
Slashdot Mirror
Err, didnt Islam fork at the Pentarch?
How is it newer than Christanity?
Guess it just seems to me the infighting of who the heir is made this whole "War" between which religion is better (Judiasm and Islam). Guess they'll never read the Koran, which actually says once Abraham is dead, the 2 sons gather and reconcile their differences.
Sometimes, it seems that nobody really learns from the bible. They just parrot it as a thought-weapon to inflict damage. Or worse yet, they call Jesus (in terms of Christians) and make it seem that He allys with whatever that person wants.
Ok, then explain why people going into Saudi Arabia cannot have a Christian Bible?
Execution vs making you burn the bible.. Hmm...
I normally dont correct spelling errors, but you have Libel wrong.
.
Libel is "publication in the written word knowingly false things"
Liable is being "legally obligated".
In your case, car companies MUST check for the State permission to drive (as state roads surround them). If they do not check, they are Liable because they were legally obligated and did not do so.
No, you can thank Slashdot for the vonage flash crap ads.
No, Helix and RealPlayer dont play material like that..
Players for Linux. Or did you think that there's MS Windows free distros?
Face it, they're the only ones who can legally include MP3 decoders for pay-distrobutions. Why you think Red Hat took out the libs to decode?
Im sure you can put the library of congress onto 1 frame of 35 mm film.
You just need equipment to store the data and equipment to retrieve it.
Its the same argument used by the "Infinite Frequency" wonks who say you just need better equipment to store more data (when Nyquist says no).
True. You have to combine lens irregularity, packed-ness of the sensors on the camera (like for CCD's) and other real-world quality reducing effects.
Just most people just dont get the difference between analog data and digital data. Just saying analog data is like infinite bitrate is easier and get sthe point across (without the esoterics).
Err... Most places use film, an analog medium. You cant get "bitrate" or resolution out of them, as they have infinite resolution.
Then again, Im pretty sure I'd be happy with that quality..
Perhaps the Media Companies really DO get it, but dont want to lets us know they do..
Still, I wonder exactly what scheme they use to play these.. And, if I work out the numbers...
100 GB for 2 hours. Thats 7200 seconds.
We dont know if thats GB or GiB, so lets assume its GB. 100GB/7200sec or 1 GB per 72 seconds. Thats about 13.9MB per second for all sound channels and video.
If they really do spend THAT much on making vinal film, why not instead hook up to a fiber optic network and transmit ALL films to a server at the theater?
Took 20 seconds to find this information.
The Advancement of Learning
Essays of Francis Bacon
New Atlantis
Valerius Terminus; of the interpretation of nature
Wow, I just found 4 of his books, in complete form. Looks like that reporter didnt do his job very well at all. And Im sure, if I looked more, I'd find more of his works.
One thing I did notoice is that retard-of-a-reporter looked at the 'purty' pictures on top of Google. The second link gives a lonk to the life of Bacon the Philosopher.
Except the have-nots are the people who refuse to embrace the internet themselves.
...
...
...
... Some Things About the Underground Railroad: What was the Underground Railroad?
... Thanks for taking our trip on the Underground Railroad!. html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages
The paper-based encyclopedias are dying fairly rapidly, as I can check the search engines and find many, many sources of information.
Lets do one, shall we... Phrase: Underground Railroad.
1: I get a map thrumbnail showing paths on the Underground Railroad
2: The amount of material gleaned on just the metadata and the URL. See below.
____________
Underground Railroad--History of Slavery, Pictures, Information
You are a slave in Maryland in the 1800s. Can you escape? Learn what challenges slaves faced in National Geographic's Underground Railroad adventure. Get information
www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/ - 5k - Cached - Similar pages
Underground Railroad--History of Slavery, Pictures, Information
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD CONTENTS.
www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/j1.html - 8k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.nationalgeographic.com ]
Aboard the Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad refers to the effort--sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized--to assist persons held in bondage in North America to escape
www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/ - 8k - Cached - Similar pages
The Underground Railroad Site - Table of Contents
The Underground Railroad Table of Contents. - This site is no longer maintained!
education.ucdavis.edu/NEW/ STC/lesson/socstud/railroad/contents.htm - 6k - Cached - Similar pages
Harriet Tubman and The Underground Railroad for Children
Click here to go back to Pocantico Hills School. Harriet Tubman & The Underground Railroad.
www2.lhric.org/pocantico/tubman/tubman
___________
If I had no clue, North America, Black, Escape, Harriet Tubman, and much more.
And those who would say "The Encyclopedias check data for us more than we'll ever need to", well.. Look at the 1'st link. Would you consider National Geographic, or then many many colleges to have non-factual information?
Tsk tsk. I await for the death of our past information-controlling overlords.
Oh Sheesh. Yeah, back in the 90's they were the #1 WORST company to have spyware, crapware, slowware and everything else to jam up your PC.
I think Real 'Real'ized what they were doing wrong, and now have embraced the open-source community by releasing a full-powered player called Helix.
Go try it out sometime, and if you feel vulnerable, go make a linux acct and jail it, whilst running Helix.
Its seriously good. And its the 1'st "legit" way to play MP3's (they paid fraunhouffer MP3 fee so it can be included in pay distros).
... so that when you collapse the wave function, voila! the correct answer is revealed, as if by magic?
Most of the time.
Wow, only 30$ an hour? Boy are you selling yourself short.
Second, common Linux problems are already solved. Just search google for the "problem" and there'll be 10 or more people with the same and solutions to try.
If you really need a solution, you either make it yourself or find like-minded people and change similar software to do what you need.
Ok, look at my goods worth 50k dollars.
Now pay the IRS their tax due for "Valuable" Prizes.
Bzzt, wrong. The correct answer to OSS software is that it's worth 0$ and 0 Cents.
Ok. MP3's and uncompressed WAVs are "undiscernable". Bullshit.
Compare Grieg's "Song of Petersburg" from lossless wav to 24kbit mono MP3. Can you hear the difference?
Ok, thats not a fair test. Of course you were talking about a high quality MP3, perhaps 256kbit full stereo MP3. ok...
Do you have a home theater setup? Go slot a disc holding that MP3 (the 256 kbit one) and listen to it and compare it to the wav... You can discern the difference. There's things missing from the mp3 when you "magnify" it to the high quality equipment.. Just as you can see artifacts when you watch Dish-Network feeds on a 1024i widescreen. Normally you dont see em, but every so often, you see the blockies..
When I say I can discern the difference, it's because I know many many pieces. I play as lead clarinet in a symphony, so I know what I "miss". When the MP3 encoding clips out the violin's harmonics (or most other instruments) I can tell most of the time. Of course somebody will say "its cause you have crap equipment" or some other audiophile crap.
For the naysayers, I say listen to a symphony by sitting in the center of the orchestra.
Heh, product activation. WHat a joke, and its on us consumers.
;)
Good thing I use a student (Professional) version of WIn2k with no activation, serials, or other nuisances required. Just slot the disc and after X hours, its ready to roll. And I bought 3 of these discs.. 5$ each from the school bookstore.
The scheme they had on these discs reminded me of another scheme used on another set of OS discs..
Can you name another set of programs and OS that is relatively cheap (pay for media), no call home behavior, no serials, and in general things mostly work..
Oh, thats right. Linux
---oh ok, but what if you just get a bunch of your friends who are proven to say that im that otehr guy?
The frinds have to be authenticated, usually by birth certificate AND a photo ID. They MUST be identified and noted.
They then testify in front of a judge that person X is, and has been a citizen of this country. Things like friends and family are taken into account, as business relationships are wanted too.
If the group testifying that the person is from (say..) the USA and wasnt, they're all put in for: Perjury, Conspiracy, Violation of Immigration Laws and many many other federal statutes. We're talking major serious jailtime.
---And how does the first guy get prooven? does it start with like the president and his family, work its way down the chain, and then hit the public? or is it one lucky guy that some gov worker belives?
Nope, they just have to be verified legit citizens of this country.
>>>In reality, the law SHOULD be that you have full access to YOUR information, and can correct provable, factual parts that are incorrect.
... do business have the right to defend themselves against the normal costs of doing business, by placing their own customers at risk? Is this a justifiable tradeoff?
... it's usurious at best, and usury is illegal. Or used to be, at any rate.
... the financial history itself.
>Absolutely, and I would add that there should be a stiff penalty if a data aggregator denies a citizen that ability, and such denial results in a crime.
Really, after thinking about it, couldnt you sue them for libel if they refuse to correct your information? They send and receive the "written word" and it's wrong.. Damages in refusal of sales and other nefarious uses should be acceptable by the courts..
>>>I really cant answer if they should be selling this data...
>Sure you can! Think about how this came about, and where it's going.
>Originally, collecting and maintaining the so-called "credit history" on individual citizens was all about risk avoidance. That's still the case, of course. Businesses have always maintained records about past customers, so that they could then decide how, and if, to do business with said customers in the future. That's been true since we kept records carved on rocks or stamped in clay.
All too true. And when sales have delayed payments, bonds of trust MUST be made. These bonds should go both ways, but in practice, the consumer gets screwed as many have little or no recourse.
>The problem came in when business realized, with the advent of the mainframe, telecommunications and vast, cheap, readily-accessible storage that they could share this information with each other, thus dividing the risk. Thus was born the credit bureau. To my mind, the whole concept of the credit bureau is on ethically shaky ground anyway
This is simply put in common terms as a "Web of Trust". Right now, the scales of this trust are heavily tipped towards corporations and have been for a long time. CheckPoint are just one set of trolls guarding this 'bridge'.
The real threat is this indexes only the users, or the consumers. It's all one sided. Instead, the relationship web should cross businesses and people alike. If that was the case, people themselves could see who does and doesnt accept XYZ corporate or person, and what corporation doesnt accept XYZ users or corporations.
The best analogies I can come up with are 2 (half-assed ones): PGP public-key relationships and Orkut. Well, Slashdot relationships would be another one, but yet still incomplete.
>Given the number of lives destroyed by the credit system over the years, I'd be inclined to say no
If 2 groups(sides would be better?) of people come together, discuss a procedure or work or something substantial, and both sides agree, is that bad? Lets assume that the job being done does not affect anybody else other than the 2 stated parties (you know, like murder, kidnapping, and the like are bad).
If one side wants a house, and the other side sells, is that legal?
If one side wants a warehouse, and the other side builds warehouses, is that legal?
If one side needs 5000$ today for an important purchase, and the other side has very high interest(say.. 35%) but has the money now, is that legal?
Point I'm trying to make is if there is a meeting of the minds, and an agreement based on that 'meeting of the minds', why or why not would it be illegal? As long as the act in that agreement itself not against the law, what matters the payment?
>So where are we now? Well, what has changed is that the demand is no longer just for security (customer "x" wants to buy product "y", give me yes/no on the transaction) but for the actual information used to make such decisions
Ok, person P goes to a store and uses non-legal-tender like a check. Assumin
Well, Im unsure what exactly you do, but you could print some nice brochures and mail them to many businesses in the local area for a "Security Checkup". You could even successfully target businesses with outsourced IT to check up on them (like a security task force).
Offer, say, for 1000$ a full, comprehensive network, computer, data security, and personnel scan. Do the usual scare-campaign, but with a very professional slant, such as "how much would this assessment cost in compairson to legal fees?" and such.
Once youre done with the Company X's scan, then give them a comprehensive list of every 'nook and cranny' of whats wrong with their security. Itemize it, and put a price to fix there. You could come off very clean as to say "I put my prices as you wish to have somebody else fix it.
I do this when I need to.. It makes easy money for those who bite.. and it provides a very valuabe service.
---This is very interesting, but didn't ChoicePoint sell this personal information to the people that "stole" it?
I consider misleading to get information the same as hacking to get it. The only difference is that ChoicePoint was paid. Why should they care?
---The issue is that people were buying credit reporting services from choicepoint, since choicepoint is in the business of selling this data to companies. The people who stole this data just posed as real companies, and choicepoint didn't do their homework and check on the black hats' bona fidus.
Sometimes hacking has to do with throwing up a huge wall of "mistrust" and make the other party believe in something they shouldnt. Still, couldnt you claim that many "legit" companies use this data in what could be considered very improper?
Guess that brings up the question whether we should punish the company(s) or the people who do wrong...
---This is not a hacker issue; no one is claiming a computer was rooted or compromised or that some kid with a script was punching passwords into choicepoint's web site. Choicepoint was selling this data, and the they were human engineered into selling the data to people who had malign intent.
Still, this shows one of my points: Laziness. A "identity" company not checking the corporate identity. And then the people in the "evil" company do evil things.
Who's to be punished?
---The issue is wether anyone should be selling this stuff AT ALL.
Would you accept checks from somebody for medium-large amounts without checking up on who they are, and whether they've bounced checks before?
In reality, the law SHOULD be that you have full access to YOUR information, and can correct provable, factual parts that are incorrect. I really cant answer if they should be selling this data...
---So if big brother, has like all this information on us (creditcard numbers places we freq eat and stupid random intel like that), then what if THEY get hacked? Wouldnt that mean hell for everybody thats ever been in america? I could only imagine standing in line at a public school to get my friggin id back, but how would they validate whose who? if theres no pictures, oculd you just steal somebody's drivers liscence or wallet and say that your them?
Im no lawyer, but if you just _cant_ prove your identity cause XYZ documents are stolen/lost, you bring acquainances who are legitly proven and they vouch for you. People like that could be friends, family, employees, teachers...
Essentially, its like that Orkut. If you cant prove who you are, people who are proved back you up. And if they lie, its perjury and a bunch of other charges.
I do a lot of computer security work in my area, and trust me when I say that many, many places have either no or woefully inadequate security present.
One place I did a job for actually had a symbol AP in the ceiling of the factory, login: Symbol, pass: (blank) and unencrypted transfers. The domain admin acct (win2k) had no password, and guest was active. They also bungled up a RAS so that anybody that knew that number had "root".
Those were just external security issues.. It took 50 hours to barely fix their problems.
Still, problems are abound just like that: No or bad security. Many times, it has to do with plain laziness, not thinking anybody cares about us, just not knowing, or trying to do security and maintainence without understanding.
Another amazing this is how well modem-scanners work these days... Back in the day, all the security nuts cared about dial-back and other things... Now, everybody thinks of always-on internet so you need a firewall. Not so. Many machines have dialup gateways or interfaces in which most are just not configured. Even (to my knowledge, I use freeBSD and linux) Windows RAS server has dialback capability.
Now, why Congress wants to scrutnize them, well.. Wonder if they've secured THEIR wireless network since I was in DC...
Wow, you sure do make some hair-brained assumptions.
1: Life does exist outside of Earth.
2: Mars has life.
3: Our immune system cannot adapt to (possible) extraterrestrial microbes.
4: The microbes would have the similar makeup of chemistry to interface with Earth Chemistry.
Of course you have an interesting.. You made up plenty of stuff. Lets find some microbes and then make wild-ass guesses.
Heh, I first heard that from Fravia.. heh