Here's my question: What about the DMCA? Doesn't it make reverse engineering a patented process illegal?
The RIAA's "webcrawler" is presumably looking for people hosting material via kazaa, but here's the problem with that--FastTrack, kazaa's protocol is patented. In order for them to see the songs that somebody is hosting, wouldn't they have to reverse-engineer the protocol to make it? IANAL, but isn't this illegal, especially since the RIAA is arguably making a profit from said program?
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like patents and intellictual property is only important or enforced when it profits the big companies best. When people distribute a couple songs, it's theft or "piracy." When the RIAA steals intellectual property, it's justice.
You're oversimplifying what I said. Put down you high school algebra book and think for a second.
Since I was demonstrating how lawfulness is not a good measure of what is or isn't terrorism, how would I go about doing it? I'd have to show (a) a government that practiced terrorism or (b) laws that allowed for terrorism. I used two examples that first came to mind that I believed would be easily appreciable. In doing so, I sufficiently disproved the parent's assertion that laws determine what is or isn't terrorism. The analogy ended there--let it go.
Something I forgot to mention in my last post was this: The fact that one can even potentially lose their house, car, and livelihood over downloading songs is absurd. Even if you think distributing copyrighted content (in this case, songs) is illegal, shouldn't then the punishment fit the crime? The fact that it doesn't by any reasonable standard (stealing a few CDs worth of songs amounts to millions dollars in damages?) is reason enough to believe the laws are unjust.
Don't get me wrong, I hate when people mislabel things "terrorism." Smoking marijuana is not terrorism. Driving an SUV is not terrorism. But making somebody financially destitute for no better reason than to scare a group of related people is terrorism at its most basic.
They were merely examples of the fact that terrorism can be lawful, if the laws are unjust. Let's put our hypersensitivity aside and realize what I said in the context of the conversation. Obviously, I'm not likening the RIAA to Hitler or slaveowners.
The parent seemed to think that because what the RIAA is doing is legal, it isn't terrorism. This just isn't the case.
How is this measure, which is entirely legal and non-violent "terrorist-like"? Or is everything we don't like supposed to be referred to as "terrorism" now? I didn't get the memo...
Slave owners in the South routinely made examples out of troublemakers by severely beating or killing them. Even more recently, the Nazi regime routinely scared the Jewish community into submission before they began to eradicate them. Both instances were legal and both instances were undeniably forms of terrorism.
terrorism (n.): "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."
I'm willing to argue that, if the laws are unjust, acts which are lawful may still be a form of terrorism. As its been stated on here numerous times in the past in a number of different ways, the idea that one can own an intangible object that, at the same time, they wish to be distributed to the world is absurd and unjust given the way humans think and interpret information. Even if you don't agree with this, however, you can agree with the fact that our legal system unfairly favors the rich, and when you're involved in litigation against an entity with nearly unlimited funds, you have little to no chance (even if you have a good case). This too is unjust.
Staring down the barrel of multi-million dollar lawsuit that could ruin the lives of you and your loved ones that you additionally have virtually no chance of winning over a couple songs that were may have been recorded up to 75 years ago seems like terrorism to me, and its legality makes no difference.
Bullets in games don't ricochet, and shooting at brittle objects nearby (concrete walls, for example) never seems to spray you with high-velocity debris, nor does shot bounce around dangerously in enclosed spaces with hard surfaces.
I had the opportunity over the summer to talk with a solider in the U.S. Special Forces, and, being a paintball player I asked him some questions regarding actual combat.
What surprised me the most was when I asked him how they handle people at the ends of long hallways. I know from paintball and FPS games that this can be one of the most frustrating situations.
He told me that what they do is "skip" bullets off the walls so they don't actually have to come around a corner to shoot the other soldiers. I immediately asked him "So, real bullets will bounce off regular walls if you shoot at a shallow enough angle?" His response? "You're daaamnn right they do...", with a smile.
That's an idea that I found very interesting because I've never seen an FPS game that tries to mimic this, and it's not really applicable in paintball where the balls have to be soft. I really hope that some games/mods in the future try to model this kind of stuff because it would definitely have an impact on the tactics and realism of the games.
On my summers, when I was still in High School my parents would take me to Hilton Head where they had a deathmatch laser tag setup. Between my experiences in paintball for a couple years and playing FPS games since Wolfenstein I would absolutely clean house. Even the owners were impressed when I would beat them when they would cheat by wearing two vests or putting clothing overtop their sensors.
Tactics learned in deathmatch FPS games are vital for a good laser tag player such as: keeping on the move, learning the movement/attack patterns of other players, reducing the ability of your opponent to hit you by changing height (ducking or going to one knee) or rotating your torso to present a minimal target, randomly increasing or decreasing your speed to throw off the leading of other players, and most of all, establishing kill-priorities (knowing the chances someone has of killing you in a situation, so you can kill your opponents in the most efficient order.) Nearly none of these are skills you can learn outside of laser tag or first person shooters in civilian life.
There is no doubt in my mind that these skills, given some further refinement, would easily transfer over to real-life combat situations. In fact, if you want proof, look at the game America's Army. It makes perfect sense that the army would want to attract FPS gamers because of this.
Sadly, I tend to agree. I'll never forget the fury I felt when I opened up my HP Pavilion a few years ago to find that they had combined the soundcard and modem onto one PCI card. This wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put a fake PCI cover on the back of the computer to make them look like the two cards were separate, and THAT wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put the cover for the fake "modem" right in the way of my only advertised "free" PCI slot.
It was very deceptive. And the only reason was so they could say "one free PCI slot" on the box, knowing damn well that not only was that PCI slot unusable but nearly nobody is going to open it up in the store to figure it out. So the net effect of this ridiculous situation wass was that I had to buy a new soundcard and modem (for a modem issue) and from then on, I tell every person who asks (and that's a lot, since I'm in a tech support position) to avoid HP like he plague.
The trouble is that the people who buy HPs (low-end, cheap machines--the desktops, at least.) are not the people who read/. or care to understand why their MS Works (*shudder*) won't install on their new machine.
I'm afraid that, in an attempt to lower their bottomeline they're forgetting their current market, but who knows? Maybe, with this, they'll get a new market. At the very least, it should be really interesting to see how other companies respond and how succeessful HP is in this venture.
I can't believe the government is actually considering putting a backdoor in every cable modem. Karnivore, while of debatable, legitimacy, is at the very least, secure because its physical components are kept very far away from crackers (in secured buildings of Tier one providers). Thus, it works on a fairly good premise of obscurity and limited access.
If this type of backdoor was inside the cable/DSL modem next to your computer, imagine how quickly both the obscurity and limited access factors disappear. You can kiss any type of sibilance of security on the internet goodbye because, in no time, every script kiddie running windows will be able to packet sniff your computer.
Sometimes, I really wonder how highly funded groups like the FBI can ignore common sense problems. If there's ONE thing I think we've all learned in the past twenty years in regards to computer security is: if it's even minutely possible for them to do so, they (geeks) will figure it out. If you put an encryption scheme on every DVD drive in the world, they will figure it out. If you don't address a security bug in a prominent piece of software, they will figure it out. And if you put some uber-packet sniffing device on every cable/DSL modem in the country, they will figure it out with probably an extra sense of haste.
So if this does come to pass, how long do you think it'll take for it to be cracked? My guess is a week. *sigh* Your hard earned tax dollars at work.
That's a good point, but let's elaborate on your situation a bit. How do you explain the odds to the patient when he or she will die in minutes if you don't act? What lawyers don't seem to understand is that much of medicine happens on such a quick timescale that there is no time to sit down and discuss the intricacies of the procedure over a cup of coffee.
Nobody sues the firefighter who loses a building because of a split-second decision. But the reason isn't because he took more time to make his decision than a doctor. The firefigher doesn't get sued because he doesn't have as much money. Same goes with EMTs, who do some of the exact same procedures as doctors. The reason they get sued less is because its more profitable to sue either their company or the doctor's whose table the patient happened to land on--because they're the real cash cows.
Combine this with an attitude in the public that modern medicine is above nature, and the situation gets worst. People just can't seem to understand that death is a fact of life and, one day, granny won't be around anymore. I know of one case right now where an elderly smoker died because of purely natural causes, and the family is bringing up lawsuits against every doctor whom she had contact with (including one whom she was with for only five minutes).
The situation is out of control, and it has less to do with doctors not explaining the odds and more to do with the ignorance of the general public in regards to medicine and the greed of what's supposed to be our system of "justice."
Because of the mass amount of litigation and the public perception of the legal system as the lottery, malpractice insurance has skyrocketed to the point where, in some areas, you simply cannot afford to practice.
In a county in West Virginia, not far from where I live, it got so bad that nearly all of the doctors had to move away because the cost of malpractice insurance was too high. In fact, in a couple counties there weren't any obstetricians AT ALL. So, that means if you or your significant other went into labor, you had to drive a couple hours just to find someone qualified to deliver it.
In fact, in a recent survey showed that 78% of obstetricians in West Virginia had been sued at least once in their careers. You can't tell me that they are all bad doctors. In fact, I believe that most of them are probably great doctors who are being victimized by an uneducated public and unethical, "free-if-you-lose" lawyers.
Because imagine if some eccentric multi-billionaire (think Bill Gates) decided to get a billion dollars in cash and just burn it? (After all, what's the *practical* difference between one billion and two?) Now imagine that he's done this in secret, so the government can't reprint the money. Or what if he gets all his friends to do it? Or what happens when the next big rapper fad is to wear suits made of $100 bills to the point where every wigger in the suburbs is wearing one?
It doesn't take an economist to know that these kinds of things would cause major problems in a very short timespan.
If someone goes into actual cardiac arrest, those two minutes aren't going to matter, because the EMTs aren't going to arrive there in time anyway. Like you point out, the best hope for someone in that situation is an AED.
But yeah... point well made by the thread creator. Cell phones do serve a purpose other than mindless chatter and this is something people should consider before jamming these things--no matter how annoying they are at times.
I'll never forget the time when I was standing in line to appear for graduation (2002). All of us in the top ten were talking about our speeches, and I asked one of them (2nd in our class) if I could read her speech. I skimmed through the standard-issue "glad we made it this far"-crap, but when I finished, I realized that she ended the speech with a preposition. I laughed, and mentioned this to her, suggesting a minor change. Her response? She simply shrugged and said she didn't care.
I think this is the true problem with most kids nowadays. They don't care. And why should they? I remember most of my "writing" classes consisted of idiotic writing prompts like: "If you were a seagull, what would you do?" (actual prompt) These classes are too much about expressing your inner-seagull that punctuation and grammar are considered secondary at best; page length being the most important factor, of course.
I mean, honestly, the problem isn't that difficult to define. Let's not blame IM for what is fundamentally the fault of our society as a whole. I think, before we point fingers, we all need to step back and ask ourselves, "What is going on here?"
What I find most interesting is how the last 150 meters to the customer is done via 802.11b wireless. While the guy is right in saying that it will provide roaming capabilities, this represents a huge security (or lack thereof) issue.
Soon Canada will become the true safe haven for all pot-smokers and hackers, it seems. Better plan a roadtrip, boys.
Yes, you're right, they could do it that way, but this makes for a huge scale-ability problem, because policy-enforcement (or QoS, whatever) at the router/application level is CPU intensive.
While it might look more "elegant" from the user's prospective to have bandwidth capping on the ISP-end, when you're the ISP responsible for millions of customers, a few (or few hundred) less CPU cycles/sec/customer makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Despite the fact that it's in your house, the cable modem isn't yours--it belongs to the cable company. You're buying the service NOT the hardware. This isn't any different (or any less illegal) than modifying your digital cable receiver to get all the PPV and premium channels.
Actually, I'll go back on that last statement. It IS different in that when you take PPV or premium channels, you aren't limiting the channels available to other users. So, in this view, uncapping is worse than modifying your cable-box, because you are consuming bandwidth that could be used for other customers.
What most people don't understand is that bandwidth caps are a necessary evil to make home internet connections under hundreds of dollars per month. Without caps, ISPs simply couldn't provide the same level of service to as many customers and would therefore have to charge more per customer. I shudder at thought of the outcry we'd here from the same people who are uncapping if they did that.
If your service is slow, limited outrageously, or ridden with packetloss, fine, one could argue that the ISP isn't keeping up their end of the deal, but find another ISP (or if you can't, bug them enough until it costs more to fix/change it than it does to have a tech person talking to you all the time). Don't uncap, you're only making the situation worse.
I forgot to add some important things related to pricing.
$2000 would be MORE than enough for both the hardware (as I described) AND labor, which would merely consist of 30 mins. of mounting and plugging everything in... Seriously, I have faith that nearly anybody on/. could set this stuff up without a sweat.
Mark my words, anybody who says it will cost more is either an idiot or wanting your money, and yes, that's my professional opinion--no bullshit.
The only things I would worry about are what other people are discussing, which would be security. With this kind of setup, you're going to be blasting at about 16 WATTS (!) of 2.4 gHz signal PER AP. This is literally ridiculous. To put that in perspective, our towers are about 5~10 (I forget what it actually is, I didn't set it up) watts and can go to about 20 miles line-of-sight. Obviously, we use much better and bigger antennas, but you get the idea--every hacker in town will probably be able to see your AP, so make SURE its secure as possible.
If you need more help on setting this kind of stuff up (without having to worry about getting ripped off--as they couldn't/wouldn't try to sell anything to you) check out the following ISPs I know of:
At the Wireless ISP I work at, we use almost exclusively for client-side links, YDI Etherant IIs. They're great. The radio-card is integrated right into the antenna, which drastically increases Signal to Noise ratio. What most people forget is that the coaxial cable from their radiocard to their (c)antenna is a source of loss and interference. I highly recommend YDI because they take this into account.
What you're looking for would be this it's the same thing, but would provide the access point. One could probably do it, but I'd put my money on two (seeing as how we don't know how thick and large the building is). If you put one at the top of the building in a corner facing diagnonally down, and another facing the opposite way tilted up, this will be MORE than enough coverage. From here, you would just have to plug the CAT-5 coming out the back into DSL routers which would then plug into your DSL/cable connection, and you're good to go.
What are you talking about? I thought everybody knew that DDT is dangerous and why. (But I'm a biology major, so I guess my views are a bit skewed.)
DDT (and similar chemicals) is dangerous because it is not filtered out or broken down by animals upon ingestion or contact. So, basically, it accumulates in their bodies over time. What's real bad, though, is that they accumulate in the areas of the body that are most likely consumed by predators and the like (muscles and so on). But it gets worse, because this accumulation effect ends up making the DDT in tertiary predators (predators of other predators) thousands of times more concentrated than what is found in the environment or in consumers lower in the food chain.
So take, for instance, a hawk. It has all of the DDT that all it gets through contact with the environment PLUS all of the DDT in the mice it eats. These mice, in turn, get DDT from both the environment and all of the bugs THEY eat. So, if you think of it that way, imagine how many insects it takes to sustain just ONE hawk. Now imagine each insect has even a tiny amount of DDT. It doesn't take much of a mental leap to infer the inevitable poisoning of the hawk from this point of view.
Now, I'm no environmentalist--not by a long shot, but DDT is bad stuff. It's something we should all be concerned about because we are, by definition, tertiary predators. You think this effect is limited to simply hawks and "dumb animals"? Why do you think cancer rates have skyrocketed over the past century almost completely paralleling the use of chemicals in our agriculture and livestock? Only now are we beginning to understand just how bad fertilizers, pesticides, and preservatives are for us.
What a stupid analogy! If you leave your house unlocked, the only person likely to be hurt by it is you when you come home and find your stereo, PC, and TV gone. If you leave an open relay, you potentially hurt many innocent third parties. If you want a better analogy, it's like the government telling you that you can't leave a loaded shotgun on a picnic bench in a public park.
Gimme a break! A loaded shotgun!? Since when has spam resulted in the direct injury or death of a person? In your own words, "what a stupid analogy!" Spam may be an annoyance. Hell, it may even be a legal liability or cost at WORST, but I think everybody needs to step back and realize: it's just E-mail.
What amazes me is how half of the slashdot crowd cheers on E-mail worms like MyDoom and the one that took down Windows Update, but then suggest people all but lynch the owners of open relays.
What boggles my mind is how hostile people get towards end users of fairly complicated Mail hosting programs. Personally, I've had to deal with the people at ordb.org, and let me tell you, they're a bunch of jackasses about the whole thing. If you had a chance to read their old FAQ (they've since changed it), you could tell that whoever wrote it was getting off on forcing people to change their server settings as he saw fit. So, while I'm getting barked at by customers who's "e-mail won't work," I've got to sit through childish comments about how I suck as an admin. The whole thing really pissed me off.
I understand that many of you uber-users expect that every admin should know all the ins and outs of every server/program, but I'm afraid that's just not possible sometimes. Our Wireless ISP consisted of 3 technically-capable people. Between setting up people's connections, repairing relay sites (using both proprietary and OTS equipment), setting up servers, setting up routing, technical support, providing network content shaping, hosting/designing websites, setting up policy enforcement, documenting it all, securing the network, AND providing e-mail to boot, there's just not enough time to do everything and get it right the first time. BESIDES, what's so wrong about expecting things to work when you do a regular install?
Actually, it'll just be the continuation of a theme that's been going on in US Military technology for years: "We push a button, and then you die."
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will hate us even more for it and rightfully so, I guess, but it's better than letting China or North Korea have the upper hand, that's for sure.
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Here's my question: What about the DMCA? Doesn't it make reverse engineering a patented process illegal?
The RIAA's "webcrawler" is presumably looking for people hosting material via kazaa, but here's the problem with that--FastTrack, kazaa's protocol is patented. In order for them to see the songs that somebody is hosting, wouldn't they have to reverse-engineer the protocol to make it? IANAL, but isn't this illegal, especially since the RIAA is arguably making a profit from said program?
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like patents and intellictual property is only important or enforced when it profits the big companies best. When people distribute a couple songs, it's theft or "piracy." When the RIAA steals intellectual property, it's justice.
-Grym
Since I was demonstrating how lawfulness is not a good measure of what is or isn't terrorism, how would I go about doing it? I'd have to show (a) a government that practiced terrorism or (b) laws that allowed for terrorism. I used two examples that first came to mind that I believed would be easily appreciable. In doing so, I sufficiently disproved the parent's assertion that laws determine what is or isn't terrorism. The analogy ended there--let it go.
-Grym
I agree.
Something I forgot to mention in my last post was this: The fact that one can even potentially lose their house, car, and livelihood over downloading songs is absurd. Even if you think distributing copyrighted content (in this case, songs) is illegal, shouldn't then the punishment fit the crime? The fact that it doesn't by any reasonable standard (stealing a few CDs worth of songs amounts to millions dollars in damages?) is reason enough to believe the laws are unjust.
Don't get me wrong, I hate when people mislabel things "terrorism." Smoking marijuana is not terrorism. Driving an SUV is not terrorism. But making somebody financially destitute for no better reason than to scare a group of related people is terrorism at its most basic.
-Grym
They were merely examples of the fact that terrorism can be lawful, if the laws are unjust. Let's put our hypersensitivity aside and realize what I said in the context of the conversation. Obviously, I'm not likening the RIAA to Hitler or slaveowners.
The parent seemed to think that because what the RIAA is doing is legal, it isn't terrorism. This just isn't the case.
-Grym
How is this measure, which is entirely legal and non-violent "terrorist-like"? Or is everything we don't like supposed to be referred to as "terrorism" now? I didn't get the memo...
Slave owners in the South routinely made examples out of troublemakers by severely beating or killing them. Even more recently, the Nazi regime routinely scared the Jewish community into submission before they began to eradicate them. Both instances were legal and both instances were undeniably forms of terrorism.
terrorism (n.): "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."
I'm willing to argue that, if the laws are unjust, acts which are lawful may still be a form of terrorism. As its been stated on here numerous times in the past in a number of different ways, the idea that one can own an intangible object that, at the same time, they wish to be distributed to the world is absurd and unjust given the way humans think and interpret information. Even if you don't agree with this, however, you can agree with the fact that our legal system unfairly favors the rich, and when you're involved in litigation against an entity with nearly unlimited funds, you have little to no chance (even if you have a good case). This too is unjust.
Staring down the barrel of multi-million dollar lawsuit that could ruin the lives of you and your loved ones that you additionally have virtually no chance of winning over a couple songs that were may have been recorded up to 75 years ago seems like terrorism to me, and its legality makes no difference.
-Grym
Bullets in games don't ricochet, and shooting at brittle objects nearby (concrete walls, for example) never seems to spray you with high-velocity debris, nor does shot bounce around dangerously in enclosed spaces with hard surfaces.
I had the opportunity over the summer to talk with a solider in the U.S. Special Forces, and, being a paintball player I asked him some questions regarding actual combat.
What surprised me the most was when I asked him how they handle people at the ends of long hallways. I know from paintball and FPS games that this can be one of the most frustrating situations.
He told me that what they do is "skip" bullets off the walls so they don't actually have to come around a corner to shoot the other soldiers. I immediately asked him "So, real bullets will bounce off regular walls if you shoot at a shallow enough angle?" His response? "You're daaamnn right they do...", with a smile.
That's an idea that I found very interesting because I've never seen an FPS game that tries to mimic this, and it's not really applicable in paintball where the balls have to be soft. I really hope that some games/mods in the future try to model this kind of stuff because it would definitely have an impact on the tactics and realism of the games.
-Grym
Absolutely.
On my summers, when I was still in High School my parents would take me to Hilton Head where they had a deathmatch laser tag setup. Between my experiences in paintball for a couple years and playing FPS games since Wolfenstein I would absolutely clean house. Even the owners were impressed when I would beat them when they would cheat by wearing two vests or putting clothing overtop their sensors.
Tactics learned in deathmatch FPS games are vital for a good laser tag player such as: keeping on the move, learning the movement/attack patterns of other players, reducing the ability of your opponent to hit you by changing height (ducking or going to one knee) or rotating your torso to present a minimal target, randomly increasing or decreasing your speed to throw off the leading of other players, and most of all, establishing kill-priorities (knowing the chances someone has of killing you in a situation, so you can kill your opponents in the most efficient order.) Nearly none of these are skills you can learn outside of laser tag or first person shooters in civilian life.
There is no doubt in my mind that these skills, given some further refinement, would easily transfer over to real-life combat situations. In fact, if you want proof, look at the game America's Army. It makes perfect sense that the army would want to attract FPS gamers because of this.
-Grym
Hah!
Sadly, I tend to agree. I'll never forget the fury I felt when I opened up my HP Pavilion a few years ago to find that they had combined the soundcard and modem onto one PCI card. This wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put a fake PCI cover on the back of the computer to make them look like the two cards were separate, and THAT wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't of put the cover for the fake "modem" right in the way of my only advertised "free" PCI slot.
It was very deceptive. And the only reason was so they could say "one free PCI slot" on the box, knowing damn well that not only was that PCI slot unusable but nearly nobody is going to open it up in the store to figure it out. So the net effect of this ridiculous situation wass was that I had to buy a new soundcard and modem (for a modem issue) and from then on, I tell every person who asks (and that's a lot, since I'm in a tech support position) to avoid HP like he plague.
-Grym
Exactly.
/. or care to understand why their MS Works (*shudder*) won't install on their new machine.
The trouble is that the people who buy HPs (low-end, cheap machines--the desktops, at least.) are not the people who read
I'm afraid that, in an attempt to lower their bottomeline they're forgetting their current market, but who knows? Maybe, with this, they'll get a new market. At the very least, it should be really interesting to see how other companies respond and how succeessful HP is in this venture.
-Grym
When it's 5:00 AM and you write more than three flaming sentences, sometimes you miss a word or two. My deepest apologies.
-Grym
I can't believe the government is actually considering putting a backdoor in every cable modem. Karnivore, while of debatable, legitimacy, is at the very least, secure because its physical components are kept very far away from crackers (in secured buildings of Tier one providers). Thus, it works on a fairly good premise of obscurity and limited access.
If this type of backdoor was inside the cable/DSL modem next to your computer, imagine how quickly both the obscurity and limited access factors disappear. You can kiss any type of sibilance of security on the internet goodbye because, in no time, every script kiddie running windows will be able to packet sniff your computer.
Sometimes, I really wonder how highly funded groups like the FBI can ignore common sense problems. If there's ONE thing I think we've all learned in the past twenty years in regards to computer security is: if it's even minutely possible for them to do so, they (geeks) will figure it out. If you put an encryption scheme on every DVD drive in the world, they will figure it out. If you don't address a security bug in a prominent piece of software, they will figure it out. And if you put some uber-packet sniffing device on every cable/DSL modem in the country, they will figure it out with probably an extra sense of haste.
So if this does come to pass, how long do you think it'll take for it to be cracked? My guess is a week. *sigh* Your hard earned tax dollars at work.
-Grym
That's a good point, but let's elaborate on your situation a bit. How do you explain the odds to the patient when he or she will die in minutes if you don't act? What lawyers don't seem to understand is that much of medicine happens on such a quick timescale that there is no time to sit down and discuss the intricacies of the procedure over a cup of coffee.
Nobody sues the firefighter who loses a building because of a split-second decision. But the reason isn't because he took more time to make his decision than a doctor. The firefigher doesn't get sued because he doesn't have as much money. Same goes with EMTs, who do some of the exact same procedures as doctors. The reason they get sued less is because its more profitable to sue either their company or the doctor's whose table the patient happened to land on--because they're the real cash cows.
Combine this with an attitude in the public that modern medicine is above nature, and the situation gets worst. People just can't seem to understand that death is a fact of life and, one day, granny won't be around anymore. I know of one case right now where an elderly smoker died because of purely natural causes, and the family is bringing up lawsuits against every doctor whom she had contact with (including one whom she was with for only five minutes).
The situation is out of control, and it has less to do with doctors not explaining the odds and more to do with the ignorance of the general public in regards to medicine and the greed of what's supposed to be our system of "justice."
-Grym
Absurd? I'll tell you what's absurd:
Because of the mass amount of litigation and the public perception of the legal system as the lottery, malpractice insurance has skyrocketed to the point where, in some areas, you simply cannot afford to practice.
In a county in West Virginia, not far from where I live, it got so bad that nearly all of the doctors had to move away because the cost of malpractice insurance was too high. In fact, in a couple counties there weren't any obstetricians AT ALL. So, that means if you or your significant other went into labor, you had to drive a couple hours just to find someone qualified to deliver it.
In fact, in a recent survey showed that 78% of obstetricians in West Virginia had been sued at least once in their careers. You can't tell me that they are all bad doctors. In fact, I believe that most of them are probably great doctors who are being victimized by an uneducated public and unethical, "free-if-you-lose" lawyers.
-Grym
Because imagine if some eccentric multi-billionaire (think Bill Gates) decided to get a billion dollars in cash and just burn it? (After all, what's the *practical* difference between one billion and two?) Now imagine that he's done this in secret, so the government can't reprint the money. Or what if he gets all his friends to do it? Or what happens when the next big rapper fad is to wear suits made of $100 bills to the point where every wigger in the suburbs is wearing one?
It doesn't take an economist to know that these kinds of things would cause major problems in a very short timespan.
-Grym
If someone goes into actual cardiac arrest, those two minutes aren't going to matter, because the EMTs aren't going to arrive there in time anyway. Like you point out, the best hope for someone in that situation is an AED.
But yeah... point well made by the thread creator. Cell phones do serve a purpose other than mindless chatter and this is something people should consider before jamming these things--no matter how annoying they are at times.
-Grym
I'll never forget the time when I was standing in line to appear for graduation (2002). All of us in the top ten were talking about our speeches, and I asked one of them (2nd in our class) if I could read her speech. I skimmed through the standard-issue "glad we made it this far"-crap, but when I finished, I realized that she ended the speech with a preposition. I laughed, and mentioned this to her, suggesting a minor change. Her response? She simply shrugged and said she didn't care.
I think this is the true problem with most kids nowadays. They don't care. And why should they? I remember most of my "writing" classes consisted of idiotic writing prompts like:"If you were a seagull, what would you do?" (actual prompt)
These classes are too much about expressing your inner-seagull that punctuation and grammar are considered secondary at best; page length being the most important factor, of course.
I mean, honestly, the problem isn't that difficult to define. Let's not blame IM for what is fundamentally the fault of our society as a whole. I think, before we point fingers, we all need to step back and ask ourselves, "What is going on here?"
-GrymWhat I find most interesting is how the last 150 meters to the customer is done via 802.11b wireless. While the guy is right in saying that it will provide roaming capabilities, this represents a huge security (or lack thereof) issue.
Soon Canada will become the true safe haven for all pot-smokers and hackers, it seems. Better plan a roadtrip, boys.
-GrymYes, you're right, they could do it that way, but this makes for a huge scale-ability problem, because policy-enforcement (or QoS, whatever) at the router/application level is CPU intensive.
While it might look more "elegant" from the user's prospective to have bandwidth capping on the ISP-end, when you're the ISP responsible for millions of customers, a few (or few hundred) less CPU cycles/sec/customer makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Despite the fact that it's in your house, the cable modem isn't yours--it belongs to the cable company. You're buying the service NOT the hardware. This isn't any different (or any less illegal) than modifying your digital cable receiver to get all the PPV and premium channels.
Actually, I'll go back on that last statement. It IS different in that when you take PPV or premium channels, you aren't limiting the channels available to other users. So, in this view, uncapping is worse than modifying your cable-box, because you are consuming bandwidth that could be used for other customers.
What most people don't understand is that bandwidth caps are a necessary evil to make home internet connections under hundreds of dollars per month. Without caps, ISPs simply couldn't provide the same level of service to as many customers and would therefore have to charge more per customer. I shudder at thought of the outcry we'd here from the same people who are uncapping if they did that.
If your service is slow, limited outrageously, or ridden with packetloss, fine, one could argue that the ISP isn't keeping up their end of the deal, but find another ISP (or if you can't, bug them enough until it costs more to fix/change it than it does to have a tech person talking to you all the time). Don't uncap, you're only making the situation worse.
-GrymI forgot to add some important things related to pricing.
/. could set this stuff up without a sweat.
$2000 would be MORE than enough for both the hardware (as I described) AND labor, which would merely consist of 30 mins. of mounting and plugging everything in... Seriously, I have faith that nearly anybody on
Mark my words, anybody who says it will cost more is either an idiot or wanting your money, and yes, that's my professional opinion--no bullshit.
The only things I would worry about are what other people are discussing, which would be security. With this kind of setup, you're going to be blasting at about 16 WATTS (!) of 2.4 gHz signal PER AP. This is literally ridiculous. To put that in perspective, our towers are about 5~10 (I forget what it actually is, I didn't set it up) watts and can go to about 20 miles line-of-sight. Obviously, we use much better and bigger antennas, but you get the idea--every hacker in town will probably be able to see your AP, so make SURE its secure as possible. If you need more help on setting this kind of stuff up (without having to worry about getting ripped off--as they couldn't/wouldn't try to sell anything to you) check out the following ISPs I know of:
www.planetc.com -- Planet Connect
www.4seasonswireless.com -- 4 Seasons Wireless
Assuming they're not too busy, I'm sure either of them would probably give you some advice. I hope that helps, and good luck spending all that. =)
-Grym
At the Wireless ISP I work at, we use almost exclusively for client-side links, YDI Etherant IIs. They're great. The radio-card is integrated right into the antenna, which drastically increases Signal to Noise ratio. What most people forget is that the coaxial cable from their radiocard to their (c)antenna is a source of loss and interference. I highly recommend YDI because they take this into account.
What you're looking for would be this it's the same thing, but would provide the access point. One could probably do it, but I'd put my money on two (seeing as how we don't know how thick and large the building is). If you put one at the top of the building in a corner facing diagnonally down, and another facing the opposite way tilted up, this will be MORE than enough coverage. From here, you would just have to plug the CAT-5 coming out the back into DSL routers which would then plug into your DSL/cable connection, and you're good to go.
-GrymWhat are you talking about? I thought everybody knew that DDT is dangerous and why. (But I'm a biology major, so I guess my views are a bit skewed.)
DDT (and similar chemicals) is dangerous because it is not filtered out or broken down by animals upon ingestion or contact. So, basically, it accumulates in their bodies over time. What's real bad, though, is that they accumulate in the areas of the body that are most likely consumed by predators and the like (muscles and so on). But it gets worse, because this accumulation effect ends up making the DDT in tertiary predators (predators of other predators) thousands of times more concentrated than what is found in the environment or in consumers lower in the food chain.
So take, for instance, a hawk. It has all of the DDT that all it gets through contact with the environment PLUS all of the DDT in the mice it eats. These mice, in turn, get DDT from both the environment and all of the bugs THEY eat. So, if you think of it that way, imagine how many insects it takes to sustain just ONE hawk. Now imagine each insect has even a tiny amount of DDT. It doesn't take much of a mental leap to infer the inevitable poisoning of the hawk from this point of view.
Now, I'm no environmentalist--not by a long shot, but DDT is bad stuff. It's something we should all be concerned about because we are, by definition, tertiary predators. You think this effect is limited to simply hawks and "dumb animals"? Why do you think cancer rates have skyrocketed over the past century almost completely paralleling the use of chemicals in our agriculture and livestock? Only now are we beginning to understand just how bad fertilizers, pesticides, and preservatives are for us.
-Grym
LOL
Gotta love those Nigerians, just when you think you thought you've seen everything, they prove you wrong every time.
Here's the story behind that picture, and yes, it's real. =)
-Grym
What a stupid analogy! If you leave your house unlocked, the only person likely to be hurt by it is you when you come home and find your stereo, PC, and TV gone. If you leave an open relay, you potentially hurt many innocent third parties. If you want a better analogy, it's like the government telling you that you can't leave a loaded shotgun on a picnic bench in a public park.
Gimme a break! A loaded shotgun!? Since when has spam resulted in the direct injury or death of a person? In your own words, "what a stupid analogy!" Spam may be an annoyance. Hell, it may even be a legal liability or cost at WORST, but I think everybody needs to step back and realize: it's just E-mail.
What amazes me is how half of the slashdot crowd cheers on E-mail worms like MyDoom and the one that took down Windows Update, but then suggest people all but lynch the owners of open relays.
-Grym
What boggles my mind is how hostile people get towards end users of fairly complicated Mail hosting programs. Personally, I've had to deal with the people at ordb.org, and let me tell you, they're a bunch of jackasses about the whole thing. If you had a chance to read their old FAQ (they've since changed it), you could tell that whoever wrote it was getting off on forcing people to change their server settings as he saw fit. So, while I'm getting barked at by customers who's "e-mail won't work," I've got to sit through childish comments about how I suck as an admin. The whole thing really pissed me off.
I understand that many of you uber-users expect that every admin should know all the ins and outs of every server/program, but I'm afraid that's just not possible sometimes. Our Wireless ISP consisted of 3 technically-capable people. Between setting up people's connections, repairing relay sites (using both proprietary and OTS equipment), setting up servers, setting up routing, technical support, providing network content shaping, hosting/designing websites, setting up policy enforcement, documenting it all, securing the network, AND providing e-mail to boot, there's just not enough time to do everything and get it right the first time. BESIDES, what's so wrong about expecting things to work when you do a regular install?
Since when has default == basically broke?
-Grym
Actually, it'll just be the continuation of a theme that's been going on in US Military technology for years: "We push a button, and then you die."
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will hate us even more for it and rightfully so, I guess, but it's better than letting China or North Korea have the upper hand, that's for sure.
-Grym