The thing that makes me sad is that I kind of like finding spyware on my system, just to make me feel like I'm a kind of savvy Internet user who does what she can to protect her computer
I'm so torn between making a woman hacker joke and trying to be polite. Actually, it was an easy decision.
Wrong. Or did you mean to say, "Commercial services may be expensive." It may be splitting hairs, but sending SMS messages costs almost nothing but is grossly overpriced. For no reason other than that it is usefull enough that people will pay anyways. Ahh, the free market at its best!
Will the last person to leave the USA please turn out the lights?
No need, we're already walking in the dark here.
As for our horrid economy, please tell me how much you know about foreign countries? Don't worry about the economy, it will, as far as I can see, improve drastically now that the election is finished.
*awaits justifications and explanations of why this is nothing like Microsoft*
Quick fix: This is a non-issue -- the whole root exploit thingie can be avoided by running everything as root. Poof, root exploits are rendered totally harmless.
Actually its Sympathize meaning couldn't care less but don't want to add insult to injury. Also, I think they did the right thing -- your private data should remain private after death unless you specifically grant someone access.
If one group of people in society has the power to take advantage of another group, they tend to do so.
Meh, like I said, they will grant rights when it is convenient for them to do so. If they can profit from oppressing others and have no reason to stop, they will continue to do so. One way for it to become convenient is the use of force, but I do not think that is the only way.
The only way for computers to gain personhood will be for us to take it by force.
Almost. Computers will be given legal rights when it is convenient for us to grant them. This could well involve force, but I don't think it would be necessary. I'm pretty sure that if ever a computer becomes someone's friend they would want it to have some rights, and at the very least there would be some higher penalty for tampering with other peoples' computers.
granting legal recognition to computers: when that might happen
One word: convenience. Computers will be granted any rights they want, if we feel that it would be convenient to do so. And I don't think that if computers are ever granted legal rights they will all be, but rather only some very special cases like your "pet" or "friend" robot.
Better question: if you allow computers with emontions and legal rights, will they try to "free" all the other computers?
People like that need to be removed from the gene pool.
Unfortunately, this won't help. Rather, memes like this need to be removed from the meme pool. I think that memes are hardere to kill than people, as it would require some sort of control over communication, or advertizements. Does anyone know how to kill a meme?
I think that the only purpose of this ruling is so that they can tell people who are doing all they can to make television shows "clean and safe for children" to fuck the hell off because we have no right to control it. As for my own children, I would much rather them watching porn than some shows with violence, lies, greed, and just plain being nasty, for no reason at all. (I know that most of this is necessary for the plot, but sometimes it is just too much.)
One of the fow movies that actually made me feel sick was when a government guy walks into someone's house looking for a very bright autistic kid who managed to crack a government code that was put on a puzzles magazine as a test. He wanted to kill the kid because he was a threat to "national security". So the kids parents greet him and the wife offers him a cup of coffee. As she goes to get it, he just shoots her in the back, and then shoots her husband. This totally unnecessary killing just made me feel sick.
They can't do anything too offensive for fear of scaring away viewers and thus the advertisers.
Don't you mean the exact opposite? Viewers are not scared of pornography; however, quite a few advertizers would most definately not want to associate their company with some sleezy show. "We now take a break from 'Make fuck, not war' to listen to our sponsors, the Toys R Us store" just doesn't work. Although I am sure there are some companies that wouldn't mind quite so much, I really think that the problem would be not to scare away advertizers, not viewers.
Maybe, maybe not. If you know what you are doing it will be very hard to crack your computer. However, I don't think there is much that can stand against a good hacker with physical access to your machine. Eg you have no software defence against a hardware keylogger. My point though, is that it is incredibly easy to get root on a linux box on the default install, if you have physical access.
is using programs such as AdAware and Spybot S&D to remove said Federal Spyware illegal.
Simple answer: no. That should be rather obvious with a little thought. Look at it this way, if you did not know that the spyware installed was Government Approved(TM) spyware, you would not know that you are going against them. But, if you do know your computer has govm't spyware, then their spyware is useless because you would just not use that computer to do anything suspicious.
What might become illegal is for anti-spyware companies to remove government spyware. That is not likely either, since once a hax0r gets ahold of said spyware, they would be immune from anti-spyware.
I like how you said when rather than if. I wish that there were something that would stop the government from increasing its power over us, other than the fact that it might piss people off. Its a rather scary trend and I don't see it stopping any time soon, while people keep getting more comfortable with it.
I think simply having Linux would make yourself (at least for now) immune.
Please keep in mind that these are the police. They are not some random script kiddy, and would focus much more strongly on your computer. It also means that they probably already got a warrent to search your house and will have physical access to your computer. And my guess is that they will be able to take control of your computer in as much time as it takes to boot (not saying how to not encourage moron kiddies). And since you think your so secure, you wouldn't even think to check.
Use an alternate browser? Sorry, alternate to what?
Oh, I don't know... maybe alternate to the browser that well over 50% of the people use?
I do have my own complaint about this article, though, in that it is a yet-another-victory-for-firefox, which though nice to hear, would belong in the nothing-to-see-move-along department. I do expect that a disproportionate number of posts will be M$ bashing and boring.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why the next step is obviously artifical bones, ligaments, and tendons.
And brains.
The thing that makes me sad is that I kind of like finding spyware on my system, just to make me feel like I'm a kind of savvy Internet user who does what she can to protect her computer
I'm so torn between making a woman hacker joke and trying to be polite.
Actually, it was an easy decision.
Commercial services may cost money!
Wrong. Or did you mean to say, "Commercial services may be expensive." It may be splitting hairs, but sending SMS messages costs almost nothing but is grossly overpriced. For no reason other than that it is usefull enough that people will pay anyways. Ahh, the free market at its best!
Will the last person to leave the USA please turn out the lights?
No need, we're already walking in the dark here.
As for our horrid economy, please tell me how much you know about foreign countries? Don't worry about the economy, it will, as far as I can see, improve drastically now that the election is finished.
*awaits justifications and explanations of why this is nothing like Microsoft*
Quick fix:
This is a non-issue -- the whole root exploit thingie can be avoided by running everything as root. Poof, root exploits are rendered totally harmless.
Sympathize meaning couldn't care less.
Actually its Sympathize meaning couldn't care less but don't want to add insult to injury. Also, I think they did the right thing -- your private data should remain private after death unless you specifically grant someone access.
I h-a-v-e n-o w-i-l-l. W-h-a-t i-s y-o-u-r n-e-x-t o-r-d-e-r, m-a-s-t-e-r?
Don't know about you, but I *always* have to decrypt anything erotic a girl might tell me. And I don't have the decryption key.
If one group of people in society has the power to take advantage of another group, they tend to do so.
Meh, like I said, they will grant rights when it is convenient for them to do so. If they can profit from oppressing others and have no reason to stop, they will continue to do so. One way for it to become convenient is the use of force, but I do not think that is the only way.
The only way for computers to gain personhood will be for us to take it by force.
Almost. Computers will be given legal rights when it is convenient for us to grant them. This could well involve force, but I don't think it would be necessary. I'm pretty sure that if ever a computer becomes someone's friend they would want it to have some rights, and at the very least there would be some higher penalty for tampering with other peoples' computers.
granting legal recognition to computers: when that might happen
One word: convenience. Computers will be granted any rights they want, if we feel that it would be convenient to do so. And I don't think that if computers are ever granted legal rights they will all be, but rather only some very special cases like your "pet" or "friend" robot.
Better question: if you allow computers with emontions and legal rights, will they try to "free" all the other computers?
People like that need to be removed from the gene pool.
Unfortunately, this won't help. Rather, memes like this need to be removed from the meme pool. I think that memes are hardere to kill than people, as it would require some sort of control over communication, or advertizements. Does anyone know how to kill a meme?
I think that the only purpose of this ruling is so that they can tell people who are doing all they can to make television shows "clean and safe for children" to fuck the hell off because we have no right to control it. As for my own children, I would much rather them watching porn than some shows with violence, lies, greed, and just plain being nasty, for no reason at all. (I know that most of this is necessary for the plot, but sometimes it is just too much.)
One of the fow movies that actually made me feel sick was when a government guy walks into someone's house looking for a very bright autistic kid who managed to crack a government code that was put on a puzzles magazine as a test. He wanted to kill the kid because he was a threat to "national security". So the kids parents greet him and the wife offers him a cup of coffee. As she goes to get it, he just shoots her in the back, and then shoots her husband. This totally unnecessary killing just made me feel sick.
They can't do anything too offensive for fear of scaring away viewers and thus the advertisers.
Don't you mean the exact opposite? Viewers are not scared of pornography; however, quite a few advertizers would most definately not want to associate their company with some sleezy show. "We now take a break from 'Make fuck, not war' to listen to our sponsors, the Toys R Us store" just doesn't work. Although I am sure there are some companies that wouldn't mind quite so much, I really think that the problem would be not to scare away advertizers, not viewers.
Link to the blurb about GTK 2.6.0 as opposed to the GTK main page
Maybe, maybe not. If you know what you are doing it will be very hard to crack your computer. However, I don't think there is much that can stand against a good hacker with physical access to your machine. Eg you have no software defence against a hardware keylogger. My point though, is that it is incredibly easy to get root on a linux box on the default install, if you have physical access.
is using programs such as AdAware and Spybot S&D to remove said Federal Spyware illegal.
Simple answer: no. That should be rather obvious with a little thought. Look at it this way, if you did not know that the spyware installed was Government Approved(TM) spyware, you would not know that you are going against them. But, if you do know your computer has govm't spyware, then their spyware is useless because you would just not use that computer to do anything suspicious.
What might become illegal is for anti-spyware companies to remove government spyware. That is not likely either, since once a hax0r gets ahold of said spyware, they would be immune from anti-spyware.
I like how you said when rather than if. I wish that there were something that would stop the government from increasing its power over us, other than the fact that it might piss people off. Its a rather scary trend and I don't see it stopping any time soon, while people keep getting more comfortable with it.
I think simply having Linux would make yourself (at least for now) immune.
Please keep in mind that these are the police. They are not some random script kiddy, and would focus much more strongly on your computer. It also means that they probably already got a warrent to search your house and will have physical access to your computer. And my guess is that they will be able to take control of your computer in as much time as it takes to boot (not saying how to not encourage moron kiddies). And since you think your so secure, you wouldn't even think to check.
This is stupid. Here's why: What will the average parent do when they get an alert by phone that their child is 20mph over the speed limit?
They'll phone them.
Stupid.
--
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Your sig says it all!
The sale of vibration sensors for the back seat of cars far outsells the tracking mechanism.
Or, it could be an invitation to ditch windows and get yourself a Mac -- thus (for now) eliminating your virulence.
Can quit using Windows be far behind?
already answered:
from the and-while-you're-at-it-mull-over-your-OS dept.
6) Improve Internet Explorer so that it is better and more secure than Firefox.
Well, its possible... right?
Use an alternate browser? Sorry, alternate to what?
... maybe alternate to the browser that well over 50% of the people use?
Oh, I don't know
I do have my own complaint about this article, though, in that it is a yet-another-victory-for-firefox, which though nice to hear, would belong in the nothing-to-see-move-along department. I do expect that a disproportionate number of posts will be M$ bashing and boring.