Maybe they're evil board members from a parallel universe (with goatees of course, how else could we tell them apart?). They're trying to make the company SO unprofitable it will generate anti-cash , which of course is worth a fortune in their home universe...
Does this mean they'll try to sell their good music on Napster then?
Obviously we should fix as many of the problems in NASA as we can, make safety for our astronauts one of our top concerns, but we also need to pay attention to what's inspiring, good, and worthwhile in the world, and I'd say that letting people do something they'd want to do anyway in the name of our country and science is damned well worth it.
I think you really missed my point. I agree we should be out there exploring space, and we really need to do more, go back to the moon, preferably Mars, etc. But I'm not sure NASA without some major shaking up has a culture to do it anymore. They have a huge inertia to change built up, and as the two shuttle disasters have shown us the bureacracy is often more interested in saving a few bucks than doing obvious things to increase safety.
Space exploration is, and for the forseeable future will be, inherently risky but we don't want it left in the hands of an organization that's more likely to overlook/ignore things that will kill the astronauts on their way up (Challenger) or the way down (Columbia). While the astronauts are willing to risk their lives for there chosen career I doubt any of them would have volunteered to get on the Challenger with leaky O rings if they'd been told about it. Being will to risk your life is one thing, ignoring known risks and putting yourself in danger is another.
I certainly don't think space travel will be 100% safe in my lifetime, but there are things that can and should be avoided that could kill our astronauts. That's just being practical, even in war there's a concept of acceptable losses. If you're likely to lose your whole squad on a mission with no benefit you don't send them on that mission. Likewise we shouldn't be sending astronauts up with known fixable problems that could kill them. I think those "brave astronauts" would agree. They're brave, not stupid or suicidal.
I also fail to see how Mr. O'Keefe, who heads NASA, can postpone shuttle missions citing danger to the astronauts' lives. If it seems imminent that another disaster will occur on the next flight, I would understand, but surely we've found ways to resolve the latest problems. Astronauts don't go into the business of space flight thinking they'll have "safe" jobs, and I would think that as long as they're ready to fly again, the administration would be eager to get them back in space.
Astronauts do indeed know they have unsafe jobs but it's one thing to die from an unavoidable mishap and another to die from something that should have been avoided. Both shuttle disasters have been proven to be the result of a culture (management culture at least) that tried to cut corners and costs even in the face of facts showing doing so could lead to loss of life (which it did, both times.) Frankly I really doubt NASA's culture has changed, if the shuttle goes back up it will be only a matter of time until we lose another one and it will most likely be due to avoidable error(s) (again). I fully support space travel/research but I also support the delays of starting up the shuttle program again. The only thing I'm worried about is if NASA will EVER be able to safely fly the shuttle, or anything else for that matter. I'm afraid that buracracy has taken over and NASA will never be able to avoid the avoidable risks since that might cost a few more dollars. (And yes I know not all risks can be avoided but there are risks that should not be taken when they're fixable -- like the problems in the O rings that caused the Challenger disaster.)
Do they HAVE a structural integrity field on Enterprise? I thought that got added only in the TNG era...
IIRC there was really one in the Kirk days as well, it was just never mentioned on air. It came up in the technical manuals and stuff. (Which I haven't actually read myself, flipped through a couple now and then to look at the pretty diagrams, but not read them.) I had some friends back in college who were rather gung-ho Star Trek fans so I learned a lot of stuff like that whether I wanted to or not. (On the bright side I was convinced to go to a con and got to meet James Doohan who is just a great guy.)
It makes sense that they have to have one if going past about Warp 1. They're violating the normal laws of physics with the warp engine anyway so it's doubtful just plain physical strength could hold the ship together at higher speeds. Some kind of structural integrity field, tied into the engines no doubt, would likely be pre-requisite. Of course I could be wrong, I can't even figure out what warp speed they're really going since there's some crap about the warp speed numbers being different between TOS and TNG/DS9/VOY which I have no clue about.
(I can't believe I'm posting this)
I can't believe I'm posting a response but I am bored and it was interesting to respond to.:)
IINAL of course but it's my understanding US contract law will not allow a clause such as "we can change this at anytime and you're bound by the new terms." They can, of course, change it at any time but unless they notify you it's being changed and you're given a chance to read the changes and cancel service/your contract they won't be able to enforce the changes. They can sue you all they want but the court will likely throw it out quickly.
Of course nowadays anything might be possible, but I'm pretty sure that type of clause is just posturing, they likely know they can never make it stick.
But more importantly, I think it shows just how creatively bankrupt Star Trek has gotten under Berman's watch. I lost interest in DS9 at about season two, watched perhaps half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and saw Enterprise's pilot, but that's about it. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but there's just no sense of wonder there anymore.
I agree with you mostly but you might want to check out the 3rd season of Enterprise if you haven't. Having the main storyline continuing through the entire season really made a difference, and it was nice to see things like the ship getting damaged (heavily) and the damage not magically being repaired the next episode. As a matter of fact the ship looks like only the strutural integrity field is holding it together at the end. Things got pretty intense there at the end too. It was far and away the best episodes of the series so far. Maybe they're finally getting back on track a bit.
As for the Shatner coming back as Kirk thing, I suspect it will be either 1.) He's not really goign to be Kirk but an ancestor as someone else suggested or 2.) We will get another glimpse of the future through Daniels and that's where Kirk will show up. He'll be in his proper time period so no continuity hijinx.
What Sony hasn't said for sure is whether the PS3 will be backwards compatible with DVD movies and PS2 games.
This isn't entirely true, Ken Kutargi has already said publically last September that the PS3 will play PS2 AND PS1 games. You can find more on the story here, but here's a quote from it:
"Mr. Ken Kutaragi, the boss of Sony Computer Entertainment division, has confirmed that the trend of backwards compatibility across next-gen consoles will continue. The Playstation 3 will support both Playstation 2 and PSOne titles when released sometime in 2005-2006."
While no mention was made of if it'd play regular DVDs, since PS2 games are DVD-Based it's a darn good bet it'll be able to.
Does anybody know why its so common for victims of childhood sexual abuse to become abusers, either sexual or otherwise, later on in life?
It's common for all types of abuse, somehow the abuse seems to create a desire to do the same. I suspect it's because it warps the person's sense of what is "normal" in how you treat others, but I'm sure psychologists would be able to babble on at length as to why.
It's not so much about enforcement as it is about giving companies leverage to scare people into submission. After all fear is effective.
Yes it is, but people are probably far more terrified of identity theft than some law that has yet to be enforced. That's why I think it'll fail no matter what, people have gotten unreasonable scared of providing information online for any reason.
Does anyone else have the experience that Bugmenot is full of bad registrations (either made-up or the other web site caught on)? I'm not just saying a few -- I'm saying I go through 10 or 12 Bugmenot logins before I either find one that works or I give up.
Personally I've yet to find a bad one, it probably just depends on what sites you're using.
What'll happen once sites catch on? They'll hire someone like me to spend half an hour writing a script that queries bugmenot for logins to their site, and disables those accounts. Making bugmenot useless won't be very hard.
I suspect this would become an arms race, Bugmenot would find a way to block such things (robots.txt files would probably be ignored but IP access lists wouldn't be hard) and would end up costing the media sites more than it's worth.
Perhaps what we need is a more anonymous version of Passport -- a site that knows how to sign up automatically to a large number of free-reg-required sites, with information that you give it one time. Then when you want to read the New York Times, you go to RegItForMe.com and say "please create an account at [www.nytimes.com] with my (possibly fake) info," which doesn't take any longer than using bugmenot. This way the pan-internet super-cookie privacy concerns of Passport are neatly avoided -- as far as each reg site knows, you're using a local account with them. RegItForMe.com knows which sites you've requested a login for, but not when or how often you go.
Well I already have something similar but it's not a site, it's called AI Roboform. I can use it to quickly fill in my info (even have a bogus info file to use for reg sites) and I control it completely so I trust it. I still use Bugmenot when I can simply because I don't feel like taking the time to reg with bogus info on my own.
Does that sound feasible?
It's feasible but it won't solve the root problem -- people don't want to give out their personal info to any site that doesn't have a legit reason for having it. Advertising demographics is NOT a valid reason for requesting personal info, demographics can be gathered by a signup that doesn't require a person's name, address, etc. If they want to know location just asking for a zip code should be enough for most demographics. If your advertisers wants to know down to the street address, well you should perhaps look for a more realistic advertising partner, they do exist.
The thing that amazes me is the same sites that want to require registration and ask for everthing short of your blood type are also mostly the sites running stories about identity theft online regularly. Quite a gap there, on one hand warn people to never share their info online except when absolutely necessary, then require the people you're wanting to read the article to give up that info to read it.
I've already heard suggestions that legislation be introduced that would make providing false information to businesses a crime.
Enforcing it would be an absolute and total public relations disaster. Your average-joe user is already giving false info mostly because the media's managed to terrify them into never giving any personal info online ever, or someone will steal their identity. They might manage to pass such a law, but how do you enforce a law that would make everyone a criminal?
at that point the sites will use some sort of tracking to stop people from multiple IP's logging in as the same user, simple enough to do I mean what % of people have 2 different PC's accessing the same site at the same time?
Probably more than you think. I tend to leave my browser (with multiple tabs) open at both home and work so I'd always show logged in from multiple IPs. In fact I already have problems with a few sites that get confused about this, though thankfully it just requires me to login again each day when I switch between home and work and vice-versa.
The thing is though, how much are they willing to spend to fight those who don't want to give info? Is it worth recoding things to ban multiple-IPs, or is it easier (and cheaper) to leave it be? I suspect they're not ready to push too hard, at least not yet.
There's a site that addresses this problem, it's called Bug Me Not. Just go to it, type in the URL of the site wanting a registration and it'll pull up a generic one that's been submitted. Use that to log in and you can read the article, no personal info given up. It's a community site so if a login stops working another one will be created and added.
Using Bug Me Not will likely help a lot. When the sites realize that they can't control logins and they have dozends, hundreds or even thousands logged in with the SAME info, they'll know it's not helping them in any way. What'll happen next remains to be seen, but I doubt they'll pull content, it's too ingrained into people's expectations anymore.
Given the amount of electronics and sensors the soldier is wearing, would the army also incorporate "feedback units" like adrenaline injectors and tranquilizers or would it be too prone to hacking?
All right, and they can use a specially modified version of StarCraft as the command control module!!! Think how much fun the wars will be!! (Well if you're a commander anyway.)
Re:What police/intelligence agencies have learned.
on
Blackhat/Defcon Report
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· Score: 1
I think the big thing that the government did just learn is that the president can stand on TV and announce the creation of an "intelligence czar" and not one damned person in the room will jump up and say "So what in the name of the sweet baby Jebuz is Tom frigging Ridge, then? Huh?" That scares me more than the Al Quaedas, kids.
Well I didn't jump up and say it but I've been wondering myself why we need one, as you point out, what's Tom Ridge for? I thought he, and his new department of Homeland Security, were supposed to at least coordinate info from various agencies.
Personally I think it's more a case of porkbelly and political cronyism (someone who's done a favor for Bush will get the post if it's created, but that's not a criticism, it always works that way) than any downright conspiracy or anything. Of course the fact remains that the Homeland Security dept. seems to be a lame duck free-basing rat poison.
Re:What police/intelligence agencies have learned.
on
Blackhat/Defcon Report
·
· Score: 1
The question is whether the targets scouted are still considered relevant by the terrorists. This is the type of stuff intelligence services need to find out, and in a timely manner. And if it is still a relevant target, find out if attacks are planned or are being planned. Get info on those plans, etc etc until an attack can be thwarted.
You hit the nail on the head. The prevailing opinion in all the news articles I can find today is that the jumped the gun, that the info the terrorists had on these targets hadn't been updated in a year or so and was probably stale, indicating they'd moved on to new targets.
Now whether or not our gov't should be reacting the way it is to this info (orange alerts in NYC, Newark, Washington, etc) I dont really know. They (the gov't) might have other info not releasable to the public, and keep in mind the RNC will be at Madison Square Gardens later this month.
I had forgotten the RNC was going to be there, that's a good point and probably factored into why they raised the alert, even if all the info they had is what we know about. I'd say the RNC is a more likely target than the DNC was simply because the sitting president will be at it.
One thing I've thought of is the possibility that Al Queda's letting info like this fall into our hands to throw us off track. A little ruse to make us protect the wrong thing while they mosey in and attack their preferred target. That might just be my normal paranoia talking though.
Looks like the 503 Errors with Firefox are really slowing down discussions.
They're not just in Firefox, they're affecting everyone. Slashdot's been more like SlashNOT this week so far.
What police/intelligence agencies have learned.
on
Blackhat/Defcon Report
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Want to know how little our police/intelligence agencies seem to have learned from their failures prior to 9/11?
I'm afraid we don't need Black Hat/Defcon to tell us this. Just yesterday we had major terrorism alerts about specific targets and today we find out the information was all years old. Does that mean the buildings weren't targets still? Well seeing as some of the info went back prior to 9/11 it would make it seem a fairly safe bet that the seriousness of the threat was vastly overstated.
So we know what they haven't learned quite well and many of us keep hoping they'll stop crying wolf without good reason. It's only so long till most Americans start ignoring the terror alerts as things now stand, something that would be very bad.
I'm sure there were plenty of more interesting things at Black Hat/Defcon though.:)
IIRC, Netscape had a bug bounty of sorts and it was pretty much ignored. There was a lot of annoyance from people reporting bugs to see them either never fixed or fixed and no one given credit for the bounty. (This was all pre-AOL buying Netscape.) I know the Mozilla foundation's different, but there's a lot of people with long memories and they'll need to be prepared to show they're different in this aspect too.
Surely if your business is in insuring against something, it's not in your interest to do the research to show exactly how that thing can be brought about, even if in the first instance it improves your sales?
Except in this case they're planning to expand insurance coverage to cover patent claims too. This is sort of a "hey, if you're using Linux without our insurance you may get your asses sued off, better sign up now!" Of course it's largely FUD (since none of this has stood up in court) and the insurance company may never have to fight a single suit. They might end up fighting a lot as well, that's the nature of insurance.
So as odd as it may seem this is a pretty standard way to promote buying their insurance.
Yeah they did, after firing him they finally sent the game-playing boss a memo telling him that his game playing was inappropriate. It just took a massive amount of evidence to get them to act.
D Squared agreed not to send pop-up ads using the Messenger function enabled on many Windows operating systems; such ads do not require an open Web browser to display. The company also won't sell ad-blocking software any longer, and it is barred from sending other ads unless users can choose not to receive them.
Looking at this it looks like their advertising days are over. That last bit will be hard for them to get around since they'll likely be heavily scrutinized by the FTC for some time to come.
I certainly won't feel sorry for them, they were sending their popups using the windows Messaging function, making them even lower down than most popup advertisers. Kudos to the FTC for going after these guys!
Slashdot Mirror
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Maybe they're evil board members from a parallel universe (with goatees of course, how else could we tell them apart?). They're trying to make the company SO unprofitable it will generate anti-cash , which of course is worth a fortune in their home universe...
Does this mean they'll try to sell their good music on Napster then?-
Board member #1: "Hey, let's sell our profitable division so that we can focus on one that will never make money ever."
It's a whole dotcom flashback!Board Member #2: "Brilliant!"
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Obviously we should fix as many of the problems in NASA as we can, make safety for our astronauts one of our top concerns, but we also need to pay attention to what's inspiring, good, and worthwhile in the world, and I'd say that letting people do something they'd want to do anyway in the name of our country and science is damned well worth it.
I think you really missed my point. I agree we should be out there exploring space, and we really need to do more, go back to the moon, preferably Mars, etc. But I'm not sure NASA without some major shaking up has a culture to do it anymore. They have a huge inertia to change built up, and as the two shuttle disasters have shown us the bureacracy is often more interested in saving a few bucks than doing obvious things to increase safety.Space exploration is, and for the forseeable future will be, inherently risky but we don't want it left in the hands of an organization that's more likely to overlook/ignore things that will kill the astronauts on their way up (Challenger) or the way down (Columbia). While the astronauts are willing to risk their lives for there chosen career I doubt any of them would have volunteered to get on the Challenger with leaky O rings if they'd been told about it. Being will to risk your life is one thing, ignoring known risks and putting yourself in danger is another.
I certainly don't think space travel will be 100% safe in my lifetime, but there are things that can and should be avoided that could kill our astronauts. That's just being practical, even in war there's a concept of acceptable losses. If you're likely to lose your whole squad on a mission with no benefit you don't send them on that mission. Likewise we shouldn't be sending astronauts up with known fixable problems that could kill them. I think those "brave astronauts" would agree. They're brave, not stupid or suicidal.
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I also fail to see how Mr. O'Keefe, who heads NASA, can postpone shuttle missions citing danger to the astronauts' lives. If it seems imminent that another disaster will occur on the next flight, I would understand, but surely we've found ways to resolve the latest problems. Astronauts don't go into the business of space flight thinking they'll have "safe" jobs, and I would think that as long as they're ready to fly again, the administration would be eager to get them back in space.
Astronauts do indeed know they have unsafe jobs but it's one thing to die from an unavoidable mishap and another to die from something that should have been avoided. Both shuttle disasters have been proven to be the result of a culture (management culture at least) that tried to cut corners and costs even in the face of facts showing doing so could lead to loss of life (which it did, both times.) Frankly I really doubt NASA's culture has changed, if the shuttle goes back up it will be only a matter of time until we lose another one and it will most likely be due to avoidable error(s) (again). I fully support space travel/research but I also support the delays of starting up the shuttle program again. The only thing I'm worried about is if NASA will EVER be able to safely fly the shuttle, or anything else for that matter. I'm afraid that buracracy has taken over and NASA will never be able to avoid the avoidable risks since that might cost a few more dollars. (And yes I know not all risks can be avoided but there are risks that should not be taken when they're fixable -- like the problems in the O rings that caused the Challenger disaster.)-
Do they HAVE a structural integrity field on Enterprise? I thought that got added only in the TNG era...
IIRC there was really one in the Kirk days as well, it was just never mentioned on air. It came up in the technical manuals and stuff. (Which I haven't actually read myself, flipped through a couple now and then to look at the pretty diagrams, but not read them.) I had some friends back in college who were rather gung-ho Star Trek fans so I learned a lot of stuff like that whether I wanted to or not. (On the bright side I was convinced to go to a con and got to meet James Doohan who is just a great guy.)It makes sense that they have to have one if going past about Warp 1. They're violating the normal laws of physics with the warp engine anyway so it's doubtful just plain physical strength could hold the ship together at higher speeds. Some kind of structural integrity field, tied into the engines no doubt, would likely be pre-requisite. Of course I could be wrong, I can't even figure out what warp speed they're really going since there's some crap about the warp speed numbers being different between TOS and TNG/DS9/VOY which I have no clue about.
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(I can't believe I'm posting this)
I can't believe I'm posting a response but I am bored and it was interesting to respond to.Of course nowadays anything might be possible, but I'm pretty sure that type of clause is just posturing, they likely know they can never make it stick.
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But more importantly, I think it shows just how creatively bankrupt Star Trek has gotten under Berman's watch. I lost interest in DS9 at about season two, watched perhaps half a dozen episodes of Voyager, and saw Enterprise's pilot, but that's about it. Maybe I'm getting old and crochety, but there's just no sense of wonder there anymore.
I agree with you mostly but you might want to check out the 3rd season of Enterprise if you haven't. Having the main storyline continuing through the entire season really made a difference, and it was nice to see things like the ship getting damaged (heavily) and the damage not magically being repaired the next episode. As a matter of fact the ship looks like only the strutural integrity field is holding it together at the end. Things got pretty intense there at the end too. It was far and away the best episodes of the series so far. Maybe they're finally getting back on track a bit.As for the Shatner coming back as Kirk thing, I suspect it will be either 1.) He's not really goign to be Kirk but an ancestor as someone else suggested or 2.) We will get another glimpse of the future through Daniels and that's where Kirk will show up. He'll be in his proper time period so no continuity hijinx.
-
What Sony hasn't said for sure is whether the PS3 will be backwards compatible with DVD movies and PS2 games.
This isn't entirely true, Ken Kutargi has already said publically last September that the PS3 will play PS2 AND PS1 games. You can find more on the story here, but here's a quote from it:-
"Mr. Ken Kutaragi, the boss of Sony Computer Entertainment division, has confirmed that the trend of backwards compatibility across next-gen consoles will continue. The Playstation 3 will support both Playstation 2 and PSOne titles when released sometime in 2005-2006."
While no mention was made of if it'd play regular DVDs, since PS2 games are DVD-Based it's a darn good bet it'll be able to.-
Does anybody know why its so common for victims of childhood sexual abuse to become abusers, either sexual or otherwise, later on in life?
It's common for all types of abuse, somehow the abuse seems to create a desire to do the same. I suspect it's because it warps the person's sense of what is "normal" in how you treat others, but I'm sure psychologists would be able to babble on at length as to why.-
It's not so much about enforcement as it is about giving companies leverage to scare people into submission. After all fear is effective.
Yes it is, but people are probably far more terrified of identity theft than some law that has yet to be enforced. That's why I think it'll fail no matter what, people have gotten unreasonable scared of providing information online for any reason.-
Does anyone else have the experience that Bugmenot is full of bad registrations (either made-up or the other web site caught on)? I'm not just saying a few -- I'm saying I go through 10 or 12 Bugmenot logins before I either find one that works or I give up.
Personally I've yet to find a bad one, it probably just depends on what sites you're using.-
What'll happen once sites catch on? They'll hire someone like me to spend half an hour writing a script that queries bugmenot for logins to their site, and disables those accounts. Making bugmenot useless won't be very hard.
I suspect this would become an arms race, Bugmenot would find a way to block such things (robots.txt files would probably be ignored but IP access lists wouldn't be hard) and would end up costing the media sites more than it's worth.-
Perhaps what we need is a more anonymous version of Passport -- a site that knows how to sign up automatically to a large number of free-reg-required sites, with information that you give it one time. Then when you want to read the New York Times, you go to RegItForMe.com and say "please create an account at [www.nytimes.com] with my (possibly fake) info," which doesn't take any longer than using bugmenot. This way the pan-internet super-cookie privacy concerns of Passport are neatly avoided -- as far as each reg site knows, you're using a local account with them. RegItForMe.com knows which sites you've requested a login for, but not when or how often you go.
Well I already have something similar but it's not a site, it's called AI Roboform. I can use it to quickly fill in my info (even have a bogus info file to use for reg sites) and I control it completely so I trust it. I still use Bugmenot when I can simply because I don't feel like taking the time to reg with bogus info on my own.-
Does that sound feasible?
It's feasible but it won't solve the root problem -- people don't want to give out their personal info to any site that doesn't have a legit reason for having it. Advertising demographics is NOT a valid reason for requesting personal info, demographics can be gathered by a signup that doesn't require a person's name, address, etc. If they want to know location just asking for a zip code should be enough for most demographics. If your advertisers wants to know down to the street address, well you should perhaps look for a more realistic advertising partner, they do exist.The thing that amazes me is the same sites that want to require registration and ask for everthing short of your blood type are also mostly the sites running stories about identity theft online regularly. Quite a gap there, on one hand warn people to never share their info online except when absolutely necessary, then require the people you're wanting to read the article to give up that info to read it.
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I've already heard suggestions that legislation be introduced that would make providing false information to businesses a crime.
Enforcing it would be an absolute and total public relations disaster. Your average-joe user is already giving false info mostly because the media's managed to terrify them into never giving any personal info online ever, or someone will steal their identity. They might manage to pass such a law, but how do you enforce a law that would make everyone a criminal?-
at that point the sites will use some sort of tracking to stop people from multiple IP's logging in as the same user, simple enough to do I mean what % of people have 2 different PC's accessing the same site at the same time?
Probably more than you think. I tend to leave my browser (with multiple tabs) open at both home and work so I'd always show logged in from multiple IPs. In fact I already have problems with a few sites that get confused about this, though thankfully it just requires me to login again each day when I switch between home and work and vice-versa.The thing is though, how much are they willing to spend to fight those who don't want to give info? Is it worth recoding things to ban multiple-IPs, or is it easier (and cheaper) to leave it be? I suspect they're not ready to push too hard, at least not yet.
Using Bug Me Not will likely help a lot. When the sites realize that they can't control logins and they have dozends, hundreds or even thousands logged in with the SAME info, they'll know it's not helping them in any way. What'll happen next remains to be seen, but I doubt they'll pull content, it's too ingrained into people's expectations anymore.
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Given the amount of electronics and sensors the soldier is wearing, would the army also incorporate "feedback units" like adrenaline injectors and tranquilizers or would it be too prone to hacking?
All right, and they can use a specially modified version of StarCraft as the command control module!!! Think how much fun the wars will be!! (Well if you're a commander anyway.)-
I think the big thing that the government did just learn is that the president can stand on TV and announce the creation of an "intelligence czar" and not one damned person in the room will jump up and say "So what in the name of the sweet baby Jebuz is Tom frigging Ridge, then? Huh?" That scares me more than the Al Quaedas, kids.
Well I didn't jump up and say it but I've been wondering myself why we need one, as you point out, what's Tom Ridge for? I thought he, and his new department of Homeland Security, were supposed to at least coordinate info from various agencies.Personally I think it's more a case of porkbelly and political cronyism (someone who's done a favor for Bush will get the post if it's created, but that's not a criticism, it always works that way) than any downright conspiracy or anything. Of course the fact remains that the Homeland Security dept. seems to be a lame duck free-basing rat poison.
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The question is whether the targets scouted are still considered relevant by the terrorists. This is the type of stuff intelligence services need to find out, and in a timely manner. And if it is still a relevant target, find out if attacks are planned or are being planned. Get info on those plans, etc etc until an attack can be thwarted.
You hit the nail on the head. The prevailing opinion in all the news articles I can find today is that the jumped the gun, that the info the terrorists had on these targets hadn't been updated in a year or so and was probably stale, indicating they'd moved on to new targets.-
Now whether or not our gov't should be reacting the way it is to this info (orange alerts in NYC, Newark, Washington, etc) I dont really know. They (the gov't) might have other info not releasable to the public, and keep in mind the RNC will be at Madison Square Gardens later this month.
I had forgotten the RNC was going to be there, that's a good point and probably factored into why they raised the alert, even if all the info they had is what we know about. I'd say the RNC is a more likely target than the DNC was simply because the sitting president will be at it.One thing I've thought of is the possibility that Al Queda's letting info like this fall into our hands to throw us off track. A little ruse to make us protect the wrong thing while they mosey in and attack their preferred target. That might just be my normal paranoia talking though.
-
Looks like the 503 Errors with Firefox are really slowing down discussions.
They're not just in Firefox, they're affecting everyone. Slashdot's been more like SlashNOT this week so far.-
Want to know how little our police/intelligence agencies seem to have learned from their failures prior to 9/11?
I'm afraid we don't need Black Hat/Defcon to tell us this. Just yesterday we had major terrorism alerts about specific targets and today we find out the information was all years old. Does that mean the buildings weren't targets still? Well seeing as some of the info went back prior to 9/11 it would make it seem a fairly safe bet that the seriousness of the threat was vastly overstated.So we know what they haven't learned quite well and many of us keep hoping they'll stop crying wolf without good reason. It's only so long till most Americans start ignoring the terror alerts as things now stand, something that would be very bad.
I'm sure there were plenty of more interesting things at Black Hat/Defcon though. :)
IIRC, Netscape had a bug bounty of sorts and it was pretty much ignored. There was a lot of annoyance from people reporting bugs to see them either never fixed or fixed and no one given credit for the bounty. (This was all pre-AOL buying Netscape.) I know the Mozilla foundation's different, but there's a lot of people with long memories and they'll need to be prepared to show they're different in this aspect too.
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Until someone jumps up and down in court with their army of lawyers, we'll keep it at "potentially"....
Shhh, SCO might hear you and get ideas...-
Surely if your business is in insuring against something, it's not in your interest to do the research to show exactly how that thing can be brought about, even if in the first instance it improves your sales?
Except in this case they're planning to expand insurance coverage to cover patent claims too. This is sort of a "hey, if you're using Linux without our insurance you may get your asses sued off, better sign up now!" Of course it's largely FUD (since none of this has stood up in court) and the insurance company may never have to fight a single suit. They might end up fighting a lot as well, that's the nature of insurance.So as odd as it may seem this is a pretty standard way to promote buying their insurance.
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Well, his managers didn't think so.
Yeah they did, after firing him they finally sent the game-playing boss a memo telling him that his game playing was inappropriate. It just took a massive amount of evidence to get them to act.-
D Squared agreed not to send pop-up ads using the Messenger function enabled on many Windows operating systems; such ads do not require an open Web browser to display. The company also won't sell ad-blocking software any longer, and it is barred from sending other ads unless users can choose not to receive them.
Looking at this it looks like their advertising days are over. That last bit will be hard for them to get around since they'll likely be heavily scrutinized by the FTC for some time to come.I certainly won't feel sorry for them, they were sending their popups using the windows Messaging function, making them even lower down than most popup advertisers. Kudos to the FTC for going after these guys!