It may not remain feasible to provide unlimited connectivity for systems which are not strictly serving the University's missions. Beacuse of this possibility, we reserve the right to request that users reduce the amount of traffic being caused by their service, or where necessary, to remove such systems from the campus network. In all but extreme cases, we will contact the owner of the system before removing it from the network.
It also has a clause specifically relating to copyrighted music files, specifying revocation of connection for a semester as the minimum punishment.
That probably already happened. Companies already can generally fire you for misusing corporate computing facilities, which often means doing anything not directly related to your work. Ditto for incredible lapses of judgement in using such.
This includes, say, crashing a major Lockheed internal mail server by sending a large message to every freakin' employee. Xerox at one point busted numerous employees for browsing too much -- in particular, porn on company time. And so forth.
So most companies can already fire you for accessing Napster and spending company time / money trading MP3s if they choose.
So you block connections to the offending sites, as soon as the more significant services become known.
Somebody's sharing a full video clip of the entire "Phantom Menance" movie? Revoke their connection based on terms of service. Somebody's consuming vast amounts of bandwidth, and it turns out that most of these connections are to servers for pirating MP3s? Ban 'em, and block the routes to those servers.
It's not so much the *protocol* that necessarily is banned entirely the *content provider*; if people abuse an ftp server with hordes of W4r3z, then you route away from that server, not ban ftp.
On the one hand, the column suggests that the Internet can be a bastion of freedom; on the other hand, it implies that *something* needs to be done about limiting people's verbal viciousness. In particular, it implies that everybody should feel welcome.
Would you expect a fervent activist from Handgun Control, Inc. to be welcome at an NRA convention -- or the converse? Were one to be foolish enough to attend and think he could actually convince many of those die-hard enough to attend, one would suspect that he would be engaged in rather contentious debates. This would certainly be true the other way around, as well. Would anybody suggest that the hostility would be undeserved?
If somebody barges into a newsgroup, wastes everybody's time through posting a MIMEd document with a problem explicitly dealt with in FAQs and a 15-line signature, and insists on an instant solution despite the hundreds of hours obviously invested in preparing the existing body of literature -- as well as numerous pointers to such -- then should not such be discouraged, firmly? Random ad hominen attacks may be gratuitous, but it would not be dishonest to point out the violations of existing community standards regarding prior effort before demanding the assistance of strangers.
Would you have the 'welcome' concept be decided by the alleged victim, and only by that victim? When one has law based on 'feeling', we find absurdities like a UNM ex-medical student who sued under the ADA claiming that exams make him very anxious, and a D.C. official briefly resigning over people taking offense to his using the word "niggardly", which happens to be completely unrelated to the obvious racial slur, and a California physician who got some disability pay due to stress from being caught on fraud, grand theft and tax-evasion charges...
There are reasons why concepts such as 'obscenity' are left largely up to local judges to decide upon the basis of what they see as "community standards", and why most laws are left with more objective standards... and why the federal laws regarding speech and harrassment are among the most detested in the country.
There's a lot of resentment of newbies who fail to read ANY documentation or information, at all.
Even when they're supplied with manuals, megabytes of online documentation (including guides targetted at new users), search engines galore, Usenet news archives, an FTP site that archives FAQs... what a lot of folks do is simply run to Usenet or other forums, and post their oft-answered question (but often with not enough information).
...that, and folks tend to be quite opionated. Or, rather, there's a strong bias during a discussion to seem to have an opinion, even if down the road one flip-flops for the next occasion.
I would suspect that a constantly-open discussion forum like Usenet and Slashdot exacerbates this. There's absolutely no lull in between, so combine the opinion generation with stubborness and...
That the word "Congress" appears in that Amendment is no mistake. A later Amendment, if memory serves, extends this required protection to state governments.
It says nothing about private organizations. Ergo, there is no Constitutionally guaranteed right to speech on a private forum (that is, one with zero direct federal involvement).
If Malda, say, wants to censor every post here, he can. That would probably make him legally responsible for content, but he can do it.
You just had to bring up "hate crimes". Do you know their background, and the original reasoning behind the Federal intrusion of local jurisdiction?
The concept stems from numerous incidents -- mostly in the South -- in which not only were the authorities reluctant to investigate, prosecute and punish crimes against civil rights workers, African-Americans who tried to vote, and so forth, but were sometimes *participants* in such behavior. Hence, the Federal jurisdiction. This is the ONLY reason for Federal legislation regarding "hate crimes".
This is
a) largely outmoded, as attitudes have changed and most authorities don't dare drag their feet on anything with racial overtones,
b) now in fashion, used for pandering to minority voters,
c) a way of enforcing political correctness where the crime is now defined soley by the whims and alleged sensitivity of the claimed victim, and of reinforcing PC attitudes in the general populace.
Frankly, if somebody drags somebody else to death from a pickup truck, I'm not concerned with motivation. The victim certainly isn't by that point... and to use your "threat" argument, random crime threatens *everybody* in the area due to the uncertainty.
Did you know, for instance, that a wire report labelled the pouring of acid on cars as a hate crime? Why? The targetted cars were all Fords, and others were available, so obviously that's hate.
1. Then repeal motor-voter laws. It is not necessary that all have an equal chance in EVERY method, so long as it is plausible (e.g. putting booths in subway maintenance tunnels is NOT valid) for eligible voters to vote.
2. Most voters don't spend much effort, anyway. Fewer voters cite policy issues compared to personality or physical appearance.
3. Legally, there's no stipulation that voting be either easy or difficult so long as folks can plausibly do it.
It doesn't really matter, anyway, as long as there's no separation of powers. For all practical purposes, the Executive has usurped much of Legislative authority; we now have presidential candidates talking about what executive orders they'd issue, after all. First, get a Congress that's willing and able to fight the Prez...
Cover an eye. You'll find out that you can still perceive depth pretty well, in many environments; there'll probably be a worse reduction on field of view rather than depth perception.
What you do retain is the ability to perceive textures and other cues, either innate or gained by experience, that let you rapidly decide what's further. For instance, if you look upon a tiled floor, the tiles further away look smaller -- and the lines all converge at infinity. Normally assuming that the lines are closer together means further away is safe, unless you're dealing with a twisted architect or interior designer...
That all depends on having enough resolution to see these patterns. If all you can provide is just a few signals, the regular methods may not work too well.
Would it cost Visa less than ten million to hire investigators followed by a hit team? {jk}
But really, the higher one goes, the greater the chances that it'll be cost-effective not to pay, or that the discrepancy will attract some accountant's (or worse, reporter's) attention.
'sides, how does one pick up 10 million US$ untraceably, let alone perhaps 100 million?
Having access to easy credit could be useful to many, many folks. A decently organized crime ring might be able to find a way to skim small amounts of money off of each of many numbers, or perhaps somehow use 'em for money laundering.
Disreputable businesses might be willing to charge innocent people for services not rendered, figuring that most would be too embarassed to fight in court, and those that do might still be unwilling to cash the refund check.
Rogue mathematicians who want data to help try to guess the number generators might go for it. OK, so perhaps that's a bit silly...
Point is, a lot of the perps probably don't have much of use for a huge number of CC#'s, if they even got any. Most, if they order stuff, will simply get busted as they wouldn't have a clue about getting the packages untraceably. And so forth. However, there are folks who COULD use the numbers, and might not have the skills req'd to get them.
And don't forget the risk of an inside job, by greedy or disgruntled [ex-] employees, contractors and anybody else that has access. This might be a good argument against any one sysadmin knowing too much about the system, actually; if one compartmentalizes, this restricts the damage that any one person can do.
I'm idly curious to see whether the Gartner Group's predictions about a backdoor-enabled heist by "Y2K" consultants were ever borne out...
Does anybody know about how cognizant of tech foo that paper is? Niggling details like the implication that "source codes" are something primarily used for breaking into computer security make me a bit twitchy about trusting the article.
Not obsessively. I sincerely doubt the windows in my apartment would stop a stray BB gun; would you suggest that if somebody shot out my windows, it's my fault for not investing in thick "bulletproof" glass?
Somebody who is a determined attacker and is willing to spend every day studying the process will have an advantage against somebody who actually has other foci in life.
It's possible, if you've got nice Planet/morale bonuses. If you go native, however, Locusts ain't too bad; they're not that pricey, they can hover, they're hard to attack (AIs don't go nuts on interceptors, usually)... combine with the Nanotech Factory for instant healing while they hover.
Nah. There's a simpler way -- force it to go to cable rather than regular broadcast, through FCC regulations, and then require full scrambling, and perhaps even then only starting in the late evening.
That's already done, and it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper than real-time video editing.
It's simpler to present the news that way. In the case of the Sudanese factory alleged to be a chemical weapons plant, some reporters DID note that soil samples from outside the plant were retrieved by confidential sources, and that chemical traces were found that were consistent with at least the presence of chemical weapons byproducts -- as well as pointing out that the evidence was not *conclusive*. To discuss this in detail would likely have to note:
A) the distance to the plant (I've never heard the exact location mentioned) B) what OTHER processes can result in that chemical being there C) the history of the land -- Sudan not having been a land blessed with lasting peace, after all.
That's tricky to do in a half-hour news spot with numerous minutes of lame commercials.
There's also the fact that the vast, vast majority of reporters polled voted for the current CIC, and probably still support him.
Hrrrrm. A vote-garnerer might object that a prankster might still set the threshold to the lowest possible ("none" if you want to allow full access), and then view videos of orgies in full view of wandering children.
Combine a moderation system, however, with a separate unthresholded/unfiltered room that does NOT provide easy viewing/hearing from outside... That's likely rather expensive for libraries unless they already have an available alcove, however.
Providing a _grant_ for the software would let libraries opt in or out of the system as they see fit. That *might* be closer to legality; it'd perhaps have to be distributed to the states, since I'm seeing little excuse for Federal jurisdiction here (not that the Feds seem to care. *Sigh* Did you know that there's a Federal violence-against-women law, on the basis that trauma resulting from rape may indirectly affect job performance, and the economy, and potentially interstate commerce, and thus it's suddenly a Federal matter?)
What's more worrying is that apparently you regurgitate age-old criticisms with less thought than an ant uses to negotiate around obstacles.
"all it does"?
Right.
a) Killing people is sometimes good, and occasionally necessary. That's indisputable, as not everybody has the decency to ask nicely before they overrun your country, execute your upper class, and enslave you through tribute and theft. Chamberlain was a fool, and folks all over Eurasia and Africa paid the price.
b) The consequences can be vast. For instance, witness the differences between the two Koreas. The South had to defend itself against the North; if it hadn't, do you think that they'd be even remotely self-sufficient?
c) If the Israelis had not started the Six Day War and instead simply talked to the leaders of the Syrians and Egyptians -- both at the time supplied with Soviet military hardware -- do you think they'd still be around?
Without force, there is no freedom -- and perhaps no life.
Would you rather have had CNN broadcast exact real-time details of troop deployments to Mr. Hussein? Or, that the US lecture PRC engineers and provide them with full blueprints of a standard nuclear-missile sub, and its contents? Oh, and information should be free, so let's publish all our tax info... RIGHT. Whatever.
The issue deals with public libraries because:
a) they're community resources, in contrast to your average home b) many tend to get public funding, which makes them vulnerable to government influence. c) talking about children gets more of an emotional response from most Americans, rather than, say, the fact that so far the Russian government hasn't shown a single shred of evidence that the bombing campaign allegedly wreaked by Chechens was, in fact, done by Chechens and not a provocation -- and that it refused FBI investigative help, if memory serves.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends upon your university's policy.
For instance, Carnegie Mellon's Network Group: ResHall and Remote Access Guidelines has the following paragraph: (typos theirs...)
It may not remain feasible to provide unlimited connectivity for systems which are not strictly serving the
University's missions. Beacuse of this possibility, we reserve the right to request that users reduce the amount
of traffic being caused by their service, or where necessary, to remove such systems from the campus network.
In all but extreme cases, we will contact the owner of the system before removing it from the network.
It also has a clause specifically relating to copyrighted music files, specifying revocation of connection for a semester as the minimum punishment.
That probably already happened. Companies already can generally fire you for misusing corporate computing facilities, which often means doing anything not directly related to your work. Ditto for incredible lapses of judgement in using such.
This includes, say, crashing a major Lockheed internal mail server by sending a large message to every freakin' employee. Xerox at one point busted numerous employees for browsing too much -- in particular, porn on company time. And so forth.
So most companies can already fire you for accessing Napster and spending company time / money trading MP3s if they choose.
Er, at most universities, what the students pay doesn't even come close to paying for their classes, let alone the whole kit-and-kaboodle.
Guess again.
So you block connections to the offending sites, as soon as the more significant services become known.
Somebody's sharing a full video clip of the entire "Phantom Menance" movie? Revoke their connection based on terms of service. Somebody's consuming vast amounts of bandwidth, and it turns out that most of these connections are to servers for pirating MP3s? Ban 'em, and block the routes to those servers.
It's not so much the *protocol* that necessarily is banned entirely the *content provider*; if people abuse an ftp server with hordes of W4r3z, then you route away from that server, not ban ftp.
Makes sense. It's slang for a fragmentation grenade due to their roundish shape and gridded texture.
Hrm. So what might she say about trackballs?
*ducks*
On the one hand, the column suggests that the Internet can be a bastion of freedom; on the other hand, it implies that *something* needs to be done about limiting people's verbal viciousness. In particular, it implies that everybody should feel welcome.
Would you expect a fervent activist from Handgun Control, Inc. to be welcome at an NRA convention -- or the converse? Were one to be foolish enough to attend and think he could actually convince many of those die-hard enough to attend, one would suspect that he would be engaged in rather contentious debates. This would certainly be true the other way around, as well. Would anybody suggest that the hostility would be undeserved?
If somebody barges into a newsgroup, wastes everybody's time through posting a MIMEd document with a problem explicitly dealt with in FAQs and a 15-line signature, and insists on an instant solution despite the hundreds of hours obviously invested in preparing the existing body of literature -- as well as numerous pointers to such -- then should not such be discouraged, firmly? Random ad hominen attacks may be gratuitous, but it would not be dishonest to point out the violations of existing community standards regarding prior effort before demanding the assistance of strangers.
Would you have the 'welcome' concept be decided by the alleged victim, and only by that victim? When one has law based on 'feeling', we find absurdities like a UNM ex-medical student who sued under the ADA claiming that exams make him very anxious, and a D.C. official briefly resigning over people taking offense to his using the word "niggardly", which happens to be completely unrelated to the obvious racial slur, and a California physician who got some disability pay due to stress from being caught on fraud, grand theft and tax-evasion charges...
There are reasons why concepts such as 'obscenity' are left largely up to local judges to decide upon the basis of what they see as "community standards", and why most laws are left with more objective standards... and why the federal laws regarding speech and harrassment are among the most detested in the country.
There's a lot of resentment of newbies who fail to read ANY documentation or information, at all.
Even when they're supplied with manuals, megabytes of online documentation (including guides targetted at new users), search engines galore, Usenet news archives, an FTP site that archives FAQs... what a lot of folks do is simply run to Usenet or other forums, and post their oft-answered question (but often with not enough information).
Teach 'em to fish.
...that, and folks tend to be quite opionated. Or, rather, there's a strong bias during a discussion to seem to have an opinion, even if down the road one flip-flops for the next occasion.
I would suspect that a constantly-open discussion forum like Usenet and Slashdot exacerbates this. There's absolutely no lull in between, so combine the opinion generation with stubborness and...
That the word "Congress" appears in that Amendment is no mistake. A later Amendment, if memory serves, extends this required protection to state governments.
It says nothing about private organizations. Ergo, there is no Constitutionally guaranteed right to speech on a private forum (that is, one with zero direct federal involvement).
If Malda, say, wants to censor every post here, he can. That would probably make him legally responsible for content, but he can do it.
You just had to bring up "hate crimes". Do you know their background, and the original reasoning behind the Federal intrusion of local jurisdiction?
The concept stems from numerous incidents -- mostly in the South -- in which not only were the authorities reluctant to investigate, prosecute and punish crimes against civil rights workers, African-Americans who tried to vote, and so forth, but were sometimes *participants* in such behavior. Hence, the Federal jurisdiction. This is the ONLY reason for Federal legislation regarding "hate crimes".
This is
a) largely outmoded, as attitudes have changed and most authorities don't dare drag their feet on anything with racial overtones,
b) now in fashion, used for pandering to minority voters,
c) a way of enforcing political correctness where the crime is now defined soley by the whims and alleged sensitivity of the claimed victim, and of reinforcing PC attitudes in the general populace.
Frankly, if somebody drags somebody else to death from a pickup truck, I'm not concerned with motivation. The victim certainly isn't by that point... and to use your "threat" argument, random crime threatens *everybody* in the area due to the uncertainty.
Did you know, for instance, that a wire report labelled the pouring of acid on cars as a hate crime? Why? The targetted cars were all Fords, and others were available, so obviously that's hate.
Do you remember the name Tawana Brawley?
1. Then repeal motor-voter laws. It is not
necessary that all have an equal chance in
EVERY method, so long as it is plausible
(e.g. putting booths in subway maintenance
tunnels is NOT valid) for eligible voters
to vote.
2. Most voters don't spend much effort, anyway.
Fewer voters cite policy issues compared to
personality or physical appearance.
3. Legally, there's no stipulation that voting
be either easy or difficult so long as folks
can plausibly do it.
It doesn't really matter, anyway, as long as there's no separation of powers. For all practical purposes, the Executive has usurped much of Legislative authority; we now have presidential candidates talking about what executive orders they'd issue, after all. First, get a Congress that's willing and able to fight the Prez...
It would make a pretty bad-ass lawn ornament for Halloween... :-)
Cover an eye. You'll find out that you can still perceive depth pretty well, in many environments; there'll probably be a worse reduction on field of view rather than depth perception.
What you do retain is the ability to perceive textures and other cues, either innate or gained by experience, that let you rapidly decide what's further. For instance, if you look upon a tiled floor, the tiles further away look smaller -- and the lines all converge at infinity. Normally assuming that the lines are closer together means further away is safe, unless you're dealing with a twisted architect or interior designer...
That all depends on having enough resolution to see these patterns. If all you can provide is just a few signals, the regular methods may not work too well.
Would it cost Visa less than ten million to hire investigators followed by a hit team? {jk}
But really, the higher one goes, the greater the chances that it'll be cost-effective not to pay, or that the discrepancy will attract some accountant's (or worse, reporter's) attention.
'sides, how does one pick up 10 million US$ untraceably, let alone perhaps 100 million?
It need not be a competitor.
Having access to easy credit could be useful to many, many folks. A decently organized crime ring might be able to find a way to skim small amounts of money off of each of many numbers, or perhaps somehow use 'em for money laundering.
Disreputable businesses might be willing to charge innocent people for services not rendered, figuring that most would be too embarassed to fight in court, and those that do might still be unwilling to cash the refund check.
Rogue mathematicians who want data to help try to guess the number generators might go for it. OK, so perhaps that's a bit silly...
Point is, a lot of the perps probably don't have much of use for a huge number of CC#'s, if they even got any. Most, if they order stuff, will simply get busted as they wouldn't have a clue about getting the packages untraceably. And so forth. However, there are folks who COULD use the numbers, and might not have the skills req'd to get them.
And don't forget the risk of an inside job, by greedy or disgruntled [ex-] employees, contractors and anybody else that has access. This might be a good argument against any one sysadmin knowing too much about the system, actually; if one compartmentalizes, this restricts the damage that any one person can do.
I'm idly curious to see whether the Gartner Group's predictions about a backdoor-enabled heist by "Y2K" consultants were ever borne out...
Does anybody know about how cognizant of tech foo that paper is? Niggling details like the implication that "source codes" are something primarily used for breaking into computer security make me a bit twitchy about trusting the article.
Not obsessively. I sincerely doubt the windows in my apartment would stop a stray BB gun; would you suggest that if somebody shot out my windows, it's my fault for not investing in thick "bulletproof" glass?
Somebody who is a determined attacker and is willing to spend every day studying the process will have an advantage against somebody who actually has other foci in life.
It's possible, if you've got nice Planet/morale bonuses. If you go native, however, Locusts ain't too bad; they're not that pricey, they can hover, they're hard to attack (AIs don't go nuts on interceptors, usually)... combine with the Nanotech Factory for instant healing while they hover.
Nah. There's a simpler way -- force it to go to cable rather than regular broadcast, through FCC regulations, and then require full scrambling, and perhaps even then only starting in the late evening.
That's already done, and it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper than real-time video editing.
It's simpler to present the news that way. In the case of the Sudanese factory alleged to be a chemical weapons plant, some reporters DID note that soil samples from outside the plant were retrieved by confidential sources, and that chemical traces were found that were consistent with at least the presence of chemical weapons byproducts -- as well as pointing out that the evidence was not *conclusive*. To discuss this in detail would likely have to note:
A) the distance to the plant (I've never heard the exact location mentioned)
B) what OTHER processes can result in that chemical being there
C) the history of the land -- Sudan not having been a land blessed with lasting peace, after all.
That's tricky to do in a half-hour news spot with numerous minutes of lame commercials.
There's also the fact that the vast, vast majority of reporters polled voted for the current CIC, and probably still support him.
Hrrrrm. A vote-garnerer might object that a prankster might still set the threshold to the lowest possible ("none" if you want to allow full access), and then view videos of orgies in full view of wandering children.
Combine a moderation system, however, with a separate unthresholded/unfiltered room that does NOT provide easy viewing/hearing from outside... That's likely rather expensive for libraries unless they already have an available alcove, however.
Providing a _grant_ for the software would let libraries opt in or out of the system as they see fit. That *might* be closer to legality; it'd perhaps have to be distributed to the states, since I'm seeing little excuse for Federal jurisdiction here (not that the Feds seem to care.
*Sigh* Did you know that there's a Federal violence-against-women law, on the basis that trauma resulting from rape may indirectly affect job performance, and the economy, and potentially interstate commerce, and thus it's suddenly a Federal matter?)
What's more worrying is that apparently you regurgitate age-old criticisms with less thought than an ant uses to negotiate around obstacles.
"all it does"?
Right.
a) Killing people is sometimes good, and
occasionally necessary. That's indisputable,
as not everybody has the decency to ask nicely
before they overrun your country, execute your
upper class, and enslave you through tribute
and theft. Chamberlain was a fool, and folks
all over Eurasia and Africa paid the price.
b) The consequences can be vast. For instance,
witness the differences between the two Koreas.
The South had to defend itself against the
North; if it hadn't, do you think that they'd
be even remotely self-sufficient?
c) If the Israelis had not started the Six Day
War and instead simply talked to the leaders of
the Syrians and Egyptians -- both at the time
supplied with Soviet military hardware -- do
you think they'd still be around?
Without force, there is no freedom -- and perhaps no life.
Of course there should be a need-to-know basis.
Would you rather have had CNN broadcast exact real-time details of troop deployments to Mr. Hussein? Or, that the US lecture PRC engineers and provide them with full blueprints of a standard nuclear-missile sub, and its contents? Oh, and information should be free, so let's publish all our tax info... RIGHT. Whatever.
The issue deals with public libraries because:
a) they're community resources, in contrast to
your average home
b) many tend to get public funding, which makes
them vulnerable to government influence.
c) talking about children gets more of an
emotional response from most Americans,
rather than, say, the fact that so far the
Russian government hasn't shown a single shred
of evidence that the bombing campaign allegedly
wreaked by Chechens was, in fact, done by
Chechens and not a provocation -- and that it
refused FBI investigative help, if memory
serves.