I'm sure your insurance (if you're lucky enough to have it) has more than one approved healthcare provider in your area. Maybe its time to act like a good consumer and go somewhere else where you would be more satisfied with the service?
Umm, there are three health care providers in my area and they all have the same problems, so try again. There's a shortage of primary care providers in this country because it doesn't pay as well as being a specialist yet has the same overhead in malpractice insurance and other costs.
Ummm. you think a government run healthcare system would end up with less waiting?
It's a matter of degree. In Canada, the average waiting time for a necessary surgery is 18 weeks [www.cbc.ca].
And how is that relevant to Obama's health care plan? He hasn't purposed a single-payer Gov't sponsored system.
Having your appointment happen an hour late isn't even close.
No, it's not, but the point is that health care in this country is already broken. Pointing to other countries where it's broken more doesn't justify leaving our existing system in place.
We don't have enough primary care doctors because they don't make as much money as specialists yet have the same costs of doing business (malpractice insurance being the big one). Ditto for OB/GYNs. Our insurance system sucks -- what's the point of having insurance if you wind up paying out more money than you can afford in deductibles and co-payments? Isn't insurance supposed to protect you from financial disaster? What's the point of having insurance if you have to argue with them on your death bed to get them to pay the bills? Why can my car insurance company offer a simple deductible after which all damage is fully covered but no health insurance provider can?
Our pharmaceutical industry sucks -- why can they profitably sell drugs in Canada at cheaper prices than they can in the United States? Why do they get away with making minor reformulations of their product (typically an "extended release" version) to extend/get new patents and shut out generics? Why do they spend more on marketing than they do on research? Shouldn't life-saving drugs sell themselves?
We need solutions from both sides of the aisle to fix this problem. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies need to be reined in and regulated better (typically a democratic solution). Scum-sucking ambulance chasers need to be reined in (typically a republican solution). Punitive damages shouldn't be allowed unless the health care provider was grossly negligent -- if he/she wasn't than you shouldn't be able to collect more than your actual damages.
And I notice that you conveniently forget about the "Anti-Bankruptcy Bill" that was sponsored by Vice-President nominee JOE BIDEN. This bill prevented homeowners from appealing to the courts for help
Umm, at least learn about the bankruptcy bill before you blame it for all of our problems. I've been through bankruptcy -- all the bankruptcy "reform" bill did was add a litmus test that may (depending on a lot of different factors) force people into Chapter-13s (repayment over a period of 5 years) instead of Chapter-7s (liquidation).
The bankruptcy reform bill has little to do with foreclosures because most people would typically have to file a Ch-13 anyway to keep their home. In a Ch-7 you'll lose it unless you are current on the payments AND live in a state with a large enough home exemption. If you are behind on the payments and/or have more equity than the amount of your states exemption (in New York it's only $10,000) you'll almost always lose it under a Ch-7 filing.
Yes, and who can we blame for the fact that most of them still sit in the senate, the house, and Pennsylvania Avenue?
Well, in the house you can blame your state legislators who went out of their way to draw districts that aren't competitive (unless you live in Iowa) and which all but ensure the re-election of the incumbent.
O's actions dictate he is a very, very liberal democrat
Which actions would those be? His reversal on FISA or his endorsement of the Paulson rescue plan that was largely opposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus? I don't think Obama is nearly as liberal as you seem to think. He has liberal leanings but his actual decisions seem to be grounded in pragmatism more than anything else.
McCain as pres, Dem congress, likely nothing interesting happens in four years
Do you think we can afford four more years of doing nothing on energy policy, education or health care? Ignoring the first two is going to put us at a serious disadvantage in the 21st century global economy. You could also tie them into national security -- a weak economic power is a weak military power. Ignoring the last one is also an economic issue -- our companies aren't as competitive as many foreign companies because of the costs of health care.
Obama pres, Dem congress with Republicans potantially with no filibuster, you get shafted in every way (judge appointments, pet Dem projects, taxes - because someone has to pay for all their programs, etc.
As opposed to being shafted by the first six years of the GWB administration and the rubber-stamp Republican Congress?
And yes, I can see Dems blocking bank regulations which would restrict Fannie and/or Freddie when they are in bed - in the 90's sometimes literally - with them
Fannie and Freddie are only part of the problem. The unregulated $65,000,000,000 (yes, trillion) market for credit default swaps deserves some mention.
Maybe you like waiting in line for health care. I don't.
Mind telling me where in the United States you can get health care without waiting in line? In my town a 10am appointment means sitting in the waiting room until at least 11am.
Seat belts, for instance, weren't enforced until this past decade
Ah, I gotta love the nanny state. I've never heard a good explanation for why the state should give two shits about whether or not I'm wearing a seat belt.
Or do you mean hardware keyloggers? If you're actually worried about a government agent sneaking into your office and installing a snooping device, then you're probably part of a major criminal enterprise, and certainly can afford that team of armed guards.
Kevin Mitnick [wikipedia.org] was recently on TWIT 163 this past weekend discussing a recent incident he had at an airport in Atlanta, GA coming from Columbia where he was detained and ICE/Customs officials were attempting search through his property and a laptop of his. He offers some tips on what one should do before taking your laptop with you when leaving the United States.
What the world really needs is secure storage with a self-destruct feature - when they ask you for the password, you give them X, which wipes the drive as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. (Preferably with a "decrypting, please wait" message)
Any real law enforcement investigation is going to begin by making a copy of your media and retaining the original for evidence. So unless you can build that self-destruct feature into the hardware (and somehow ensure that they can't bypass the controller chips/hardware and get at the media directly) it doesn't do you much good. If it's built into the software it will just be bypassed when they make an image of the media before trying to crack your pass phrase.
If ever a comment needed to be AC'ed it was this one. You'll probably be getting a knock at the door any moment now.
Why would posting as AC help him? If some law enforcement officer is reading this and is actually bored enough to track down Ethanol-fueled for pot they'd subpoena/. to get his IP address. I'm assuming that even AC posts have a log somewhere of the posting IP address so unless you are also using tor (or some poor bastards open AP) posting as AC isn't necessarily going to help you.
I would also hope that any LEO reading this has better things to do than track down some random person on the internet down for pot possession. At worst that's typically a misdemeanor -- in my state it's not even that.
If you do your encryption properly, it simply can't cracked by anyone not willing to expend a lot of expensive computer time â" if at all. Encryption gets broken by user sloppiness, social engineering, or (depending on your tin foil hat status) undocumented back doors. NSA magic only works in the movies.
Our Government likes to install keyloggers to capture passwords during investigations. That might come under the category of 'user sloppiness' but how many of us have the resources to secure our systems against this kind of threat? Can you afford a team of armed guards to watch your system 24/7? Can you keep it within your sight 24/7/365?
Of course if you have the Government looking into you hard enough to gain physical access to your PC then you probably have much bigger problems than people seeing your vacation photos.
Oh, and if the original poster is more concerned about them getting his data than about losing the laptop, make a one time pad, make a copy of it, put the copy of it in a safe deposit box, travel outside the US, and then after encrypting the data with the OTP, destroy the OTP so it is impossible for you to comply.
Of course if you are paranoid enough that you think you need to use a OTP then you probably wouldn't want to leave it unattended in a safety deposit box. Subpoena's and all that...
If you have that level of paranoia you have bigger concerns than the customs agent at the border -- how much are you paying the team of armed guards that watch your computer 24/7 to make sure nobody installs a keylogger or trojan?
I find it amusing that you are accusing me of lying. I said this:
What's smart about believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that man and the dinosaurs walked the Earth together?
To which you said this:
Second, please post the entire quote that proves what you're claiming she thinks is true.
So I provided this story from the Los Angeles Times. Quoting:
After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.
Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.
Now you are accusing me of lying. Where was that lie exactly? Did I say she was quoted as saying that? Someone who lived with her is quoted as saying that. There was also the matter of the librarian she fired. Some sort of book banning attempt. You can call those sources liars if you want, but I don't see where I lied. Rather interesting though that there are two different sources for her wacko beliefs.
Um, ok WTF does that have to do with me, A DEMOCRAT?
Sorry, I just assumed you were a hyper-partisan Republican troll. I guess I was giving you too much credit. You are just an asshole. Jumping all over the thread and posting to unrelated comments whining about the fact that I hadn't replied to you first.
I'd like to apologize to all hyper-partisan Republican trolls. He's clearly not one of you.
Why is that stupid? Seems to have worked pretty well for the Bush team. If I had to choose between going to prison and lying about remembering my pass phrase.... well, thankfully we have the 5th amendment and that's a moot point (for now).
alternatively confiscate your laptop and decrypt it themselves
Good luck with that. Even if the Federal Government has the resources to break AES-256 I highly doubt they are going to deploy them to break into casualsax3's laptop. More likely than not it would just be a royal PITA and you'd have to fight to your laptop back.
I would just store them in an encrypted container and hide it somewhere. From what I've read the border patrol laptop "examination" consists of looking at your recently opened documents and browser bookmarks for kiddie porn. I highly doubt they are going to take the time to scan your hard drive and ask about that strange file of random data buried somewhere......
If they are you have bigger problems than them looking at your vacation photos.
I tend to have that affect on right-wing trolls. Are you getting wet yet or should I write some posts about how Palin also wanted to ban books in the local library?
Maybe you shouldn't be such a dick when you're caught making shit up.
Maybe you shouldn't assume somebody is making shit up when they point out something that disagrees with your own world view. If you want to take issue with the link that I provided then go ahead but accusing me of "making shit up" is laughable.
BTW, if so-called partisan smear jobs bother you so much I assume that you are railing against all of the smears that are trying to claim that Senator Obama is some sort of closeted Muslim, right?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure your insurance (if you're lucky enough to have it) has more than one approved healthcare provider in your area. Maybe its time to act like a good consumer and go somewhere else where you would be more satisfied with the service?
Umm, there are three health care providers in my area and they all have the same problems, so try again. There's a shortage of primary care providers in this country because it doesn't pay as well as being a specialist yet has the same overhead in malpractice insurance and other costs.
Ummm. you think a government run healthcare system would end up with less waiting?
Did I say that?
It's a matter of degree. In Canada, the average waiting time for a necessary surgery is 18 weeks [www.cbc.ca].
And how is that relevant to Obama's health care plan? He hasn't purposed a single-payer Gov't sponsored system.
Having your appointment happen an hour late isn't even close.
No, it's not, but the point is that health care in this country is already broken. Pointing to other countries where it's broken more doesn't justify leaving our existing system in place.
We don't have enough primary care doctors because they don't make as much money as specialists yet have the same costs of doing business (malpractice insurance being the big one). Ditto for OB/GYNs. Our insurance system sucks -- what's the point of having insurance if you wind up paying out more money than you can afford in deductibles and co-payments? Isn't insurance supposed to protect you from financial disaster? What's the point of having insurance if you have to argue with them on your death bed to get them to pay the bills? Why can my car insurance company offer a simple deductible after which all damage is fully covered but no health insurance provider can?
Our pharmaceutical industry sucks -- why can they profitably sell drugs in Canada at cheaper prices than they can in the United States? Why do they get away with making minor reformulations of their product (typically an "extended release" version) to extend/get new patents and shut out generics? Why do they spend more on marketing than they do on research? Shouldn't life-saving drugs sell themselves?
We need solutions from both sides of the aisle to fix this problem. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies need to be reined in and regulated better (typically a democratic solution). Scum-sucking ambulance chasers need to be reined in (typically a republican solution). Punitive damages shouldn't be allowed unless the health care provider was grossly negligent -- if he/she wasn't than you shouldn't be able to collect more than your actual damages.
And I notice that you conveniently forget about the "Anti-Bankruptcy Bill" that was sponsored by Vice-President nominee JOE BIDEN. This bill prevented homeowners from appealing to the courts for help
Umm, at least learn about the bankruptcy bill before you blame it for all of our problems. I've been through bankruptcy -- all the bankruptcy "reform" bill did was add a litmus test that may (depending on a lot of different factors) force people into Chapter-13s (repayment over a period of 5 years) instead of Chapter-7s (liquidation).
The bankruptcy reform bill has little to do with foreclosures because most people would typically have to file a Ch-13 anyway to keep their home. In a Ch-7 you'll lose it unless you are current on the payments AND live in a state with a large enough home exemption. If you are behind on the payments and/or have more equity than the amount of your states exemption (in New York it's only $10,000) you'll almost always lose it under a Ch-7 filing.
Yes, and who can we blame for the fact that most of them still sit in the senate, the house, and Pennsylvania Avenue?
Well, in the house you can blame your state legislators who went out of their way to draw districts that aren't competitive (unless you live in Iowa) and which all but ensure the re-election of the incumbent.
O's actions dictate he is a very, very liberal democrat
Which actions would those be? His reversal on FISA or his endorsement of the Paulson rescue plan that was largely opposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus? I don't think Obama is nearly as liberal as you seem to think. He has liberal leanings but his actual decisions seem to be grounded in pragmatism more than anything else.
McCain as pres, Dem congress, likely nothing interesting happens in four years
Do you think we can afford four more years of doing nothing on energy policy, education or health care? Ignoring the first two is going to put us at a serious disadvantage in the 21st century global economy. You could also tie them into national security -- a weak economic power is a weak military power. Ignoring the last one is also an economic issue -- our companies aren't as competitive as many foreign companies because of the costs of health care.
Obama pres, Dem congress with Republicans potantially with no filibuster, you get shafted in every way (judge appointments, pet Dem projects, taxes - because someone has to pay for all their programs, etc.
As opposed to being shafted by the first six years of the GWB administration and the rubber-stamp Republican Congress?
And yes, I can see Dems blocking bank regulations which would restrict Fannie and/or Freddie when they are in bed - in the 90's sometimes literally - with them
Fannie and Freddie are only part of the problem. The unregulated $65,000,000,000 (yes, trillion) market for credit default swaps deserves some mention.
Maybe you like waiting in line for health care. I don't.
Mind telling me where in the United States you can get health care without waiting in line? In my town a 10am appointment means sitting in the waiting room until at least 11am.
Seat belts, for instance, weren't enforced until this past decade
Ah, I gotta love the nanny state. I've never heard a good explanation for why the state should give two shits about whether or not I'm wearing a seat belt.
Problem is the road is chock full of raging idiots that think their morning drive is a video game.
It is a video game. Problem is that you only have one life ;)
I guess her civil right, as guaranteed in the constitution, to talk on a cell phone while in a moving vehicle, has been abrogated.
You are looking at it the wrong way. What in the Constitution would give the Government the power to regulate where and when I can use my cell phone?
Or do you mean hardware keyloggers? If you're actually worried about a government agent sneaking into your office and installing a snooping device, then you're probably part of a major criminal enterprise, and certainly can afford that team of armed guards.
That was my point.
Kevin Mitnick [wikipedia.org] was recently on TWIT 163 this past weekend discussing a recent incident he had at an airport in Atlanta, GA coming from Columbia where he was detained and ICE/Customs officials were attempting search through his property and a laptop of his. He offers some tips on what one should do before taking your laptop with you when leaving the United States.
Tip #1: Don't be Kevin Mitnick ;)
What the world really needs is secure storage with a self-destruct feature - when they ask you for the password, you give them X, which wipes the drive as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. (Preferably with a "decrypting, please wait" message)
Any real law enforcement investigation is going to begin by making a copy of your media and retaining the original for evidence. So unless you can build that self-destruct feature into the hardware (and somehow ensure that they can't bypass the controller chips/hardware and get at the media directly) it doesn't do you much good. If it's built into the software it will just be bypassed when they make an image of the media before trying to crack your pass phrase.
so customs would regularly pull me aside and ask me about why I was traveling, or do drug tests
Can you explain what you mean by 'do drug tests'? Are they swiping your belongings down for drug residue or something like that?
If ever a comment needed to be AC'ed it was this one. You'll probably be getting a knock at the door any moment now.
Why would posting as AC help him? If some law enforcement officer is reading this and is actually bored enough to track down Ethanol-fueled for pot they'd subpoena /. to get his IP address. I'm assuming that even AC posts have a log somewhere of the posting IP address so unless you are also using tor (or some poor bastards open AP) posting as AC isn't necessarily going to help you.
I would also hope that any LEO reading this has better things to do than track down some random person on the internet down for pot possession. At worst that's typically a misdemeanor -- in my state it's not even that.
If you do your encryption properly, it simply can't cracked by anyone not willing to expend a lot of expensive computer time â" if at all. Encryption gets broken by user sloppiness, social engineering, or (depending on your tin foil hat status) undocumented back doors. NSA magic only works in the movies.
Our Government likes to install keyloggers to capture passwords during investigations. That might come under the category of 'user sloppiness' but how many of us have the resources to secure our systems against this kind of threat? Can you afford a team of armed guards to watch your system 24/7? Can you keep it within your sight 24/7/365?
Of course if you have the Government looking into you hard enough to gain physical access to your PC then you probably have much bigger problems than people seeing your vacation photos.
Oh, and if the original poster is more concerned about them getting his data than about losing the laptop, make a one time pad, make a copy of it, put the copy of it in a safe deposit box, travel outside the US, and then after encrypting the data with the OTP, destroy the OTP so it is impossible for you to comply.
Of course if you are paranoid enough that you think you need to use a OTP then you probably wouldn't want to leave it unattended in a safety deposit box. Subpoena's and all that...
If you have that level of paranoia you have bigger concerns than the customs agent at the border -- how much are you paying the team of armed guards that watch your computer 24/7 to make sure nobody installs a keylogger or trojan?
I find it amusing that you are accusing me of lying. I said this:
What's smart about believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that man and the dinosaurs walked the Earth together?
To which you said this:
Second, please post the entire quote that proves what you're claiming she thinks is true.
So I provided this story from the Los Angeles Times. Quoting:
After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.
Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.
Now you are accusing me of lying. Where was that lie exactly? Did I say she was quoted as saying that? Someone who lived with her is quoted as saying that. There was also the matter of the librarian she fired. Some sort of book banning attempt. You can call those sources liars if you want, but I don't see where I lied. Rather interesting though that there are two different sources for her wacko beliefs.
Um, ok WTF does that have to do with me, A DEMOCRAT?
Sorry, I just assumed you were a hyper-partisan Republican troll. I guess I was giving you too much credit. You are just an asshole. Jumping all over the thread and posting to unrelated comments whining about the fact that I hadn't replied to you first.
I'd like to apologize to all hyper-partisan Republican trolls. He's clearly not one of you.
Why is that stupid? Seems to have worked pretty well for the Bush team. If I had to choose between going to prison and lying about remembering my pass phrase.... well, thankfully we have the 5th amendment and that's a moot point (for now).
So I should put clothes on the hookers before I take pictures inside of my grow-house and post them on Myspace? Good to know.... ;)
alternatively confiscate your laptop and decrypt it themselves
Good luck with that. Even if the Federal Government has the resources to break AES-256 I highly doubt they are going to deploy them to break into casualsax3's laptop. More likely than not it would just be a royal PITA and you'd have to fight to your laptop back.
I would just store them in an encrypted container and hide it somewhere. From what I've read the border patrol laptop "examination" consists of looking at your recently opened documents and browser bookmarks for kiddie porn. I highly doubt they are going to take the time to scan your hard drive and ask about that strange file of random data buried somewhere......
If they are you have bigger problems than them looking at your vacation photos.
In the U.K. you are required to hand over your encryption keys if law enforcement demands it, I think--someone correct me if I am wrong there.
What happens if you take the Bush Administration approach? "I don't recall my pass phrase."
I tend to have that affect on right-wing trolls. Are you getting wet yet or should I write some posts about how Palin also wanted to ban books in the local library?
She is smart because she can see smart people from where she lives.
Well, so can I... can I be Vice President? Please pretty please? I'm not 35 yet but I can see 35 year olds from my house....
You and I are done, have a nice day.
Awww shucks, does that I mean I won't be able to look forward to anymore insightful commentary from voraciousreader, UID 1372069?
Not much point in continuing to frequent /. without that.
Maybe you shouldn't be such a dick when you're caught making shit up.
Maybe you shouldn't assume somebody is making shit up when they point out something that disagrees with your own world view. If you want to take issue with the link that I provided then go ahead but accusing me of "making shit up" is laughable.
BTW, if so-called partisan smear jobs bother you so much I assume that you are railing against all of the smears that are trying to claim that Senator Obama is some sort of closeted Muslim, right?