It'd be a bit easier to, if the code it ran, as well as the OS it ran on, was open-source, but even so, any computer made to record votes is suspect.
For the count tabulation, I agree but technology can play a role in elections simply by providing a consistent interface to ballot creation. I have lived and voted in three different states and each state has different ballots, machines, and procedures for voting. Hell, even in the same state, different precincts have different voting tools. It needs to be standardized nationally.
Here is just a few changes I would make were I made dictator for a day...;-)
* One standard paper ballot used nationally. * Voting hardware (touch screens, printers, etc) provided by the federal government. Take the decision of vendor out of the local precincts. * Standard touch screen entry systems to print the ballots. * Paper ballots used to tabulate votes. * Electronic count of ballots kept internally. No "removable cards" and the count is only a ballot count used to check for missing or stuffed boxes. * Retention of all ballots for 2 years subject to FOI requests.
This is just the things I would change on election day. There are plenty of problems pre and post election day that really should be fixed as well.
* Media cost gouging for political advertising as well as the preponderance of negative attack ads. Another problem is media recognition. Candidates for parties other than the big 2 are ignored. * Redistricting favoring incumbents * Campaign finance irregularities * Lack of participation on the part of both the electorate as well as the politicians. In my district, there were 3 seats that ran unopposed putting the same rotten apples back in power.
I'm always amused by this bit of silliness. The "establishment" that these noble rebels are rebeling against are... the people producing the very creative material they seem to want. They aren't anti-establishment, they're anti-paying-what-the-people-who-produce-it-ask. Or, anti-the-artists-they-like-to-have-entertain-them. But not so anti that they have the intellectual honesty to simply walk away from the material produced by the people they're "against."
Nice smoke and mirrors.
I would agree with you IF if was the "artists & producers of content" that held the copyrights. Since it is the distributor that does, that argument goes by the wayside.
It goes to the heart of the matter. Copyright should be for the benefit of the common society by encouraging the release of works into the "public domain". It isn't intended for the use it is being put to namely perpetual profits for distributors. The rights of copyright holders are protected by armies of lawyers. Who is protecting the rights of the public domain? It sure isn't the legislative branch since they have been bought by the media conglomerates.
On a related issue, what is with the deliberate blurring of product names in some programs? Is it a result of a request from the rights holders or a form of marketing?
In a word....Trademark.
If trademarks are not defended, you could lose the trademark. Of course, trademark is about name recognition which is marketing.
Yes, they got a judgment against Spamhaus. Judgments are meaningless if they aren't enforceable. Good luck enforcing it in the USA, since Spamhaus does not do business in the USA and has no assets in the USA to seize.
For high redundancy there are over 40 public SBL mirrors located in many nations around the world. Each SBL mirror is independently run as a free service to the Internet community and all respond in realtime to public queries of sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org. The SBL DNS mirrors are located in: Argentina, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Venezuela, the UK and USA.
They have 3 mirror servers located in the US according to the map on that page. Granted, loss of those mirrors won't have too much of an effect but it is still a US asset.
"However its likely that if spamhaus's claim that they do hold back 90% of the spam on the internet is true... even services that do not use spamhous would be indirectly effected."
Just how do you arrive at that conclusion? It's a blocklist that doesn't block shit if you (or your ISP) don't use it. They make that claim because there are a lot of mail admins that do use it. You are making the same assumption the spammers like this one are making. They don't block at the sender but at the receiving side. Spammers are free to send all they like. I don't have to receive it and spamhaus helps to determine who to block.
For impressive arrays, check out the VLA, ALMA (soon), or SKA (later). I was at the VLA last summer as part of my research (I do astronomy), it is very impressive. I was able to go into the dishes.. they're huge.
They are impressive especially VLA. I was expecting something similar to that but saw this ginormous (I know it's not a word but still...) dish. All that I could think of besides "WOW!" was "I bet they get HBO real clear." (If you can't tell, I don't do too much astronomy). Isn't it kind of dangerous both to you and the dish to be inside it? I'd be too scared of doing it some damage but then again, I'm a klutz.
The research involved sending a radar signal from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The signal hit the southern lunar region and the reflection was picked up by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia
I live in WV and have seen the Green Bank Telescope. Impressive radio telescope. Not as impressive as Arecibo though. I was expecting more like an array but it really is just one giant dish.
That depends on your definition of cost. To me, one second spent on removing something I didn't ask for, don't need, and don't want is a cost. Maybe not monetary but a time cost and I consider my time as valuable. Also, bandwidth and mail storage space isn't free even with "unlimited" service. I am paying for that bandwidth and don't want to have it wasted on something I am not going to keep.
And would you be neutral about spam that you personally receive if it took you 10 seconds per month, and required virtually no computer resources? Does the time itself really mean that much to you? Are all of your decisions in life based on a purely financial incentive?
I partly answered this above. Still, removing spam doesn't take 10 seconds a month when you get upwards of 50+ a day. Multiply that by 1,000+ if you are a postmaster. If it wasn't for computerized filtering, email would be unusable. Even with filtering it is still damned annoying when they get through.
As I said above, my time is valuable to me not just in a monetary way. I can think of a thousand better things to do than spend time deleting spam. Eventually, the signal to noise ratio will be degraded so far that email will be unusable by anybody.
The financial costs of dealing with spam are exaggerated. We're assuming that the time taken 'dealing' with spam would otherwise be spent doing something productive.
That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Cycles spent filtering spam (both human and electronic) CAN be spent on other tasks. Whether it meets your definition of "productive" is irrelevant. It is still time and money invested that can be put to better uses than spam.
The offense caused by spam isn't because it costs money. It's simply the rudeness of someone violating ones perceived territory in order to sell you something.
It is because it costs money both in the form of wasted time and wasted processing that could be spent on other things. If it takes 15 minutes to weed through email deleting spams, that is 15 minutes wasted that can never be reclaimed.
"Maybe some legal problems could be avoided by having two lists."
I agree with that except that I would use one for spammers / zombies and one for spam supporters. From what I read at spamhaus, e360 isn't a spammer but a spam supporter / enabler. By having both categories in one list, it puts pressure on the spam supporters but also affects innocent 3rd parties that get caught in the middle. I think this would also cut down the Joe Jobbing that is going on.
OTOH, spamhaus has always said they go after spammers AND spam supporters so IPSs that use them should be aware of this.
This whole thing is silly. Not only the complaint but the response by spamhaus. They were sued earlier in Florida and they responded. When it looked like they were going to get discovery the other side dropped their suit. I don't know if they got their legal fees covered (something I highly doubt since the US doesn't have a "loser pays" system). I suspect the same or similar would have happened here. In the least, they should have agrued the jurisdiction. I chalk this up to stupidity on both sides. And no, it doesn't require them to go to the US to have US legal representation. That argument is bogus. They knew about the suit and decided to ignore it instead of fighting it possibly with a counterclaim or two. They have enough evidence to support the listing. I just don't get why they ignored this one and responded to the Florida case.
There are also agreements between states known as Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). That is why you saw fire / rescue gear from around the nation responding to NY in 2001, and the Gulf states in 2005.
Paper ballots are subject to all the same security flaws that they have always been subject to. This means physical security for the most part. Ballot boxes can be "stuffed" and elections thrown into chaos quite quickly. In a bay in California they found several ballot boxes with uncounted votes still in them. In my state of WV they are still prosecuting people for vote buying and ballot box stuffing. Even when you use electronic voting with a paper receipt, they will still be vulnerable to all those security concerns. Until they invent the bullet proof way to get votes directly to the voting precinct reliably and securely, problems will be in every election with or without electronic voting.
You are wrong. They did not call the feds in because they wanted the death penalty but because the locals couldn't solve it and the public demanded it be stopped. As you note in your post, it is still officially unsolved to this day. I too think it was the same shooter as the Ohio one given that the shootings stopped here after they caught him but that is far from confirmed.
According to that map the federal government only executed 3 people. Granted, that map stops at Jan 2006 so if the feds did any from then until now....Still, it has been actively banned in WV just like it has in other states. If the feds want to execute someone from here they are going to have to extradite them to another state that does do it.
If you don't want to count those bugs, then you can't count bugs in IE as belonging to windows, because it was proven that IE isn't part of the OS.
You forgot to add an "oh, wait..." to the end of that. Microsoft argued itself into that corner in the DoJ v Microsoft antitrust trial. By claiming IE is an "integral part of the OS" they set that standard themselves.
It doesn't just happen when I send but when I receive one. It is a pain to tell someone they have to rename a file's extension simply to receive it. Far easier to use a web based email address for that stuff. Ever try to explain to a secretary how to change the extension of a file when Microsoft's Windows Explorer defaults to hiding the extension?
Murder is the killing or taking the life of a person unjustly/unlawfully and involves the intention of doing so. You can kill someone unlawfully and still be justified and it not be considered murder.
Then let's analyze the death penalty using your definition to see if it is murder. I think it is.
In your definition you claim you can justify unlawful killing without it being murder but for it to be murder you have to have the "intent" (aka premeditation) to do it. Given that a death sentence is not only planned but scheduled, I think that just made it murder by your own definition. The method of death is also planned well in advance and worse, the victim knows when it will happen and can do nothing to stop it when the appeals expire. Sure sounds like murder by your own definition to me.
I picked a shit university and a useless major. Odds are, I will suffer the consequences and be judged for it for the rest of my life.
The difference is you control the circumstances for that decision. The fix is easy by you. Simply go to another University and get another degree. A felony conviction is with you forever and there is nothing you can do to erase it. See my post above for just one example.
- Think about the _very_worst_thing_ you have ever done. Do you think you should be judged for the rest of your life on that one thing?
If your sentence is "life" then yes. I do think our system needs revamped in that a person who served their FULL sentence (not on parole / probation) honorably should, after a short time (say 5 years), have that issue expunged from their record. It is IMO unfair to continue to punish a person for things they did 20-30 years ago.
Let me give you a true story that I think is tragic. I have a co-worker that was convicted of felony possession in Florida 25 years ago. He served his entire sentence without ever looking at another drug and in fact is so anti-drug today it is nauseating. The reason he is anti-drug isn't because of the drugs but because of his experiences to this day of the conviction and continued punishment. He applied for a job at one of the counties in my state that is identical to the one he holds now that he has been doing for 6 years. They dug up that 25 year old conviction because it was the only distinguishing detail between him and the other person applying for the job. Guess who got the job. He is also barred from participating in elections because of it. His conviction happened in another state 25 years ago and he is barred from elections in this state!
Having said that, if you have not served your full sentence honorably, then you still owe that to society as deemed by the courts. OTOH, if you did serve your time then you should be allowed to move on.
I think your crystal ball is a little foggy there. Let me help you...
They're doing this for SharePoint which is going to be the lynchpin for EVERYTHING they're doing. Specifically, SharePoint + Groove. Remember, Ray Ozzie is driving this. All of these patches are aimed at OFFICE . Think about it. Collaboration. Real-time working on documents from different locations. Chatting. VoIP. It's coming.
Norman set your WayBack machine to 1995 (because hindsight is 20/20). The "big" thing with Microsoft Office 95's release was "office automation, web integration, and ease of use". By default, macros were enabled and every one of Microsoft Office's applications supported them even across applications. Now, flash forward to Office 2003. The biggest push for this is the turning off of macro support by default and nagging those that do use it to death over the security implications. As for their old web integration, they all but dropped that because of the exploits inherent to Outlook. Although your comment looks good on paper, it is a security nightmare waiting to happen. I pity the Windows admins out there that will have to deal with the fallout until Microsoft turns those off by default.
Sadly though, this kind of thing does appeal to the clueless PHBs which is why I didn't claim your crystal ball was dark. Some will implement it just like some implemented macros. Those will be the first casualties.
As a side note, I work for State government and our email server strips out Excel documents as "dangerous content" every time someone tries to send me one. I know this is a policy gone nuts but there still is nothing I can do to remedy that situation other than use a different address for Excel stuff.
It's a more complex issue that simply how many vulnerabilities each camp discloses.
You are right about that. The more important number to keep track of are out of those exploitable ones how many are exploited in the wild. That IMO is the problem with "security by obscurity". By the time they get around to fixing the exploit it is already being exploited. Nothing like closing the barn door when the horse is dead from pneumonia.
So I guess what you are saying is my Mr. Microphone won't cut it? Damn! Back to the drawing board.
B.
Re:I have plenty of reasons to dislike Microsoft..
on
The BBC's Honeypot PC
·
· Score: 1
I used "Aunt Bessy" because that is the likely customer Microsoft is targeting XP Home to. All those others you list are business interests and thus not a real target for XP Home which IMO is a real abortion in the Microsoft corporate think tank on a par with ME. That isn't meant to negate what you said as that is surely true as well. It still boils down to a Microsoft problem that I don't see getting any better.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot Faster Than Light(FTL) processors....Can't run Duke Nukem without it...
For the count tabulation, I agree but technology can play a role in elections simply by providing a consistent interface to ballot creation. I have lived and voted in three different states and each state has different ballots, machines, and procedures for voting. Hell, even in the same state, different precincts have different voting tools. It needs to be standardized nationally.
Here is just a few changes I would make were I made dictator for a day...;-)
* One standard paper ballot used nationally.
* Voting hardware (touch screens, printers, etc) provided by the federal government. Take the decision of vendor out of the local precincts.
* Standard touch screen entry systems to print the ballots.
* Paper ballots used to tabulate votes.
* Electronic count of ballots kept internally. No "removable cards" and the count is only a ballot count used to check for missing or stuffed boxes.
* Retention of all ballots for 2 years subject to FOI requests.
This is just the things I would change on election day. There are plenty of problems pre and post election day that really should be fixed as well.
* Media cost gouging for political advertising as well as the preponderance of negative attack ads. Another problem is media recognition. Candidates for parties other than the big 2 are ignored.
* Redistricting favoring incumbents
* Campaign finance irregularities
* Lack of participation on the part of both the electorate as well as the politicians. In my district, there were 3 seats that ran unopposed putting the same rotten apples back in power.
I can go on and on but I think you get the point.
B.
Nice smoke and mirrors.
I would agree with you IF if was the "artists & producers of content" that held the copyrights. Since it is the distributor that does, that argument goes by the wayside.
It goes to the heart of the matter. Copyright should be for the benefit of the common society by encouraging the release of works into the "public domain". It isn't intended for the use it is being put to namely perpetual profits for distributors. The rights of copyright holders are protected by armies of lawyers. Who is protecting the rights of the public domain? It sure isn't the legislative branch since they have been bought by the media conglomerates.
In a word....Trademark.
If trademarks are not defended, you could lose the trademark. Of course, trademark is about name recognition which is marketing.
B.
Careful here. They DO have assets in the USA.
From http://www.spamhaus.org/faq/answers.lasso?section
They have 3 mirror servers located in the US according to the map on that page. Granted, loss of those mirrors won't have too much of an effect but it is still a US asset.
B.
"However its likely that if spamhaus's claim that they do hold back 90% of the spam on the internet is true... even services that do not use spamhous would be indirectly effected."
Just how do you arrive at that conclusion? It's a blocklist that doesn't block shit if you (or your ISP) don't use it. They make that claim because there are a lot of mail admins that do use it. You are making the same assumption the spammers like this one are making. They don't block at the sender but at the receiving side. Spammers are free to send all they like. I don't have to receive it and spamhaus helps to determine who to block.
B.
They are impressive especially VLA. I was expecting something similar to that but saw this ginormous (I know it's not a word but still...) dish. All that I could think of besides "WOW!" was "I bet they get HBO real clear." (If you can't tell, I don't do too much astronomy). Isn't it kind of dangerous both to you and the dish to be inside it? I'd be too scared of doing it some damage but then again, I'm a klutz.
B.
I live in WV and have seen the Green Bank Telescope. Impressive radio telescope. Not as impressive as Arecibo though. I was expecting more like an array but it really is just one giant dish.
Better link than in the story:
http://www.gb.nrao.edu/
B.
That depends on your definition of cost. To me, one second spent on removing something I didn't ask for, don't need, and don't want is a cost. Maybe not monetary but a time cost and I consider my time as valuable. Also, bandwidth and mail storage space isn't free even with "unlimited" service. I am paying for that bandwidth and don't want to have it wasted on something I am not going to keep.
I partly answered this above. Still, removing spam doesn't take 10 seconds a month when you get upwards of 50+ a day. Multiply that by 1,000+ if you are a postmaster. If it wasn't for computerized filtering, email would be unusable. Even with filtering it is still damned annoying when they get through.
As I said above, my time is valuable to me not just in a monetary way. I can think of a thousand better things to do than spend time deleting spam. Eventually, the signal to noise ratio will be degraded so far that email will be unusable by anybody.
B.
That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Cycles spent filtering spam (both human and electronic) CAN be spent on other tasks. Whether it meets your definition of "productive" is irrelevant. It is still time and money invested that can be put to better uses than spam.
It is because it costs money both in the form of wasted time and wasted processing that could be spent on other things. If it takes 15 minutes to weed through email deleting spams, that is 15 minutes wasted that can never be reclaimed.
B.
"Maybe some legal problems could be avoided by having two lists."
I agree with that except that I would use one for spammers / zombies and one for spam supporters. From what I read at spamhaus, e360 isn't a spammer but a spam supporter / enabler. By having both categories in one list, it puts pressure on the spam supporters but also affects innocent 3rd parties that get caught in the middle. I think this would also cut down the Joe Jobbing that is going on.
OTOH, spamhaus has always said they go after spammers AND spam supporters so IPSs that use them should be aware of this.
This whole thing is silly. Not only the complaint but the response by spamhaus. They were sued earlier in Florida and they responded. When it looked like they were going to get discovery the other side dropped their suit. I don't know if they got their legal fees covered (something I highly doubt since the US doesn't have a "loser pays" system). I suspect the same or similar would have happened here. In the least, they should have agrued the jurisdiction. I chalk this up to stupidity on both sides. And no, it doesn't require them to go to the US to have US legal representation. That argument is bogus. They knew about the suit and decided to ignore it instead of fighting it possibly with a counterclaim or two. They have enough evidence to support the listing. I just don't get why they ignored this one and responded to the Florida case.
B.
There are also agreements between states known as Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). That is why you saw fire / rescue gear from around the nation responding to NY in 2001, and the Gulf states in 2005.
B.
Paper ballots are subject to all the same security flaws that they have always been subject to. This means physical security for the most part. Ballot boxes can be "stuffed" and elections thrown into chaos quite quickly. In a bay in California they found several ballot boxes with uncounted votes still in them. In my state of WV they are still prosecuting people for vote buying and ballot box stuffing. Even when you use electronic voting with a paper receipt, they will still be vulnerable to all those security concerns. Until they invent the bullet proof way to get votes directly to the voting precinct reliably and securely, problems will be in every election with or without electronic voting.
B.
You are wrong. They did not call the feds in because they wanted the death penalty but because the locals couldn't solve it and the public demanded it be stopped. As you note in your post, it is still officially unsolved to this day. I too think it was the same shooter as the Ohio one given that the shootings stopped here after they caught him but that is far from confirmed.
According to that map the federal government only executed 3 people. Granted, that map stops at Jan 2006 so if the feds did any from then until now....Still, it has been actively banned in WV just like it has in other states. If the feds want to execute someone from here they are going to have to extradite them to another state that does do it.
B.
You forgot to add an "oh, wait..." to the end of that. Microsoft argued itself into that corner in the DoJ v Microsoft antitrust trial. By claiming IE is an "integral part of the OS" they set that standard themselves.
B.
It doesn't just happen when I send but when I receive one. It is a pain to tell someone they have to rename a file's extension simply to receive it. Far easier to use a web based email address for that stuff. Ever try to explain to a secretary how to change the extension of a file when Microsoft's Windows Explorer defaults to hiding the extension?
B.
To both of you look here:
s /2006/01/01/a_chronology_of_the_death_penalty/
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/article
In my state of WV it is unlawful. So it by far is not lawful everywhere.
B.
Then let's analyze the death penalty using your definition to see if it is murder. I think it is.
In your definition you claim you can justify unlawful killing without it being murder but for it to be murder you have to have the "intent" (aka premeditation) to do it. Given that a death sentence is not only planned but scheduled, I think that just made it murder by your own definition. The method of death is also planned well in advance and worse, the victim knows when it will happen and can do nothing to stop it when the appeals expire. Sure sounds like murder by your own definition to me.
B.
The difference is you control the circumstances for that decision. The fix is easy by you. Simply go to another University and get another degree. A felony conviction is with you forever and there is nothing you can do to erase it. See my post above for just one example.
B.
If your sentence is "life" then yes. I do think our system needs revamped in that a person who served their FULL sentence (not on parole / probation) honorably should, after a short time (say 5 years), have that issue expunged from their record. It is IMO unfair to continue to punish a person for things they did 20-30 years ago.
Let me give you a true story that I think is tragic. I have a co-worker that was convicted of felony possession in Florida 25 years ago. He served his entire sentence without ever looking at another drug and in fact is so anti-drug today it is nauseating. The reason he is anti-drug isn't because of the drugs but because of his experiences to this day of the conviction and continued punishment. He applied for a job at one of the counties in my state that is identical to the one he holds now that he has been doing for 6 years. They dug up that 25 year old conviction because it was the only distinguishing detail between him and the other person applying for the job. Guess who got the job. He is also barred from participating in elections because of it. His conviction happened in another state 25 years ago and he is barred from elections in this state!
Having said that, if you have not served your full sentence honorably, then you still owe that to society as deemed by the courts. OTOH, if you did serve your time then you should be allowed to move on.
B.
Norman set your WayBack machine to 1995 (because hindsight is 20/20). The "big" thing with Microsoft Office 95's release was "office automation, web integration, and ease of use". By default, macros were enabled and every one of Microsoft Office's applications supported them even across applications. Now, flash forward to Office 2003. The biggest push for this is the turning off of macro support by default and nagging those that do use it to death over the security implications. As for their old web integration, they all but dropped that because of the exploits inherent to Outlook. Although your comment looks good on paper, it is a security nightmare waiting to happen. I pity the Windows admins out there that will have to deal with the fallout until Microsoft turns those off by default.
Sadly though, this kind of thing does appeal to the clueless PHBs which is why I didn't claim your crystal ball was dark. Some will implement it just like some implemented macros. Those will be the first casualties.
As a side note, I work for State government and our email server strips out Excel documents as "dangerous content" every time someone tries to send me one. I know this is a policy gone nuts but there still is nothing I can do to remedy that situation other than use a different address for Excel stuff.
You are right about that. The more important number to keep track of are out of those exploitable ones how many are exploited in the wild. That IMO is the problem with "security by obscurity". By the time they get around to fixing the exploit it is already being exploited. Nothing like closing the barn door when the horse is dead from pneumonia.
B.
So I guess what you are saying is my Mr. Microphone won't cut it? Damn! Back to the drawing board.
B.
I used "Aunt Bessy" because that is the likely customer Microsoft is targeting XP Home to. All those others you list are business interests and thus not a real target for XP Home which IMO is a real abortion in the Microsoft corporate think tank on a par with ME. That isn't meant to negate what you said as that is surely true as well. It still boils down to a Microsoft problem that I don't see getting any better.
B.