In general, you should always use a dedicated device to filter incoming packets. Consider it 'first line' defense.
Where things like ZoneAlarm and Kerio make a difference is that they filter outbound connections. Of particular note is that, if the user pays attention and doesn't randomly approve everything the software shows them, then a firewall application can not only block specific outbound ports, but it can maintain specific application+port rules. That way, rogue malware can't hijack commonly used ports, such as port 80. It also would prevent worms/viruses that use their own SMTP engine.
Data security should always be a layered approach. Take care of different threats with different (appropriate) defenses.
(by the way, the 'meters' was a typo, current estimates are at 150 feet in diameter)
e=mc^2
Based on the destruction that was measured, it's not entirely difficult to estimate the amount of energy required to cause the observed effect. Since there is a definite formula for converting mass to energy and vice versa, and given that we have samples of debris from extraterrestrial objects, we can calculate an average density. Therefore, we can approximate to a fair degree the approximate diameter of a spherical object required to create the effects that we quite clearly documented.
So, how about showing us some of your (allcaps) SCIENCE!
While you're at it, why don't you try some GRAMMAR! and some SPELLING! while you're casting stones in a glass house, hmm?
Mod parent up. Damn straight. I posted on/. recently in response to a headline about an asteroid almost hitting earth.
And, by the way, I think we are actually looking for the term 'Super Caldera' here. But that's just nit-picking.
Bottom line? Far too many people (genius and (alternately), slashdotters) are willing to assume that because something hasn't happened during their frame of reference that it simply can't happen to them.
It is precisely this kind of hubris that has lead to so many of man's failures.
How is it different? You either saturate bandwidth, or hog CPU/stack resources on the target. There are many ways to do this, but all of the ones used to date are known, and have detectable patterns.
Forget it. You're right. Script Kiddies are smarter than everyone else. Let's not bother. Man...I can't believe a supposed developer (and *real* hacker community like/. would so easily dismiss a simple challenge like this.
I know they are understaffed, what I am proposing is to let hardware do the work.
I am NOT proposing putting syn flood protection on the *target*, but rather, the source. Namely, the widely know space of ISP customer address ranges. Have the ISP's police their own customers, by throttling/dropping packet streams that conform to known attack signatures.
The more difficult we make it for them, the more s'kiddies we weed out, the less of an issue it becomes. It also makes it easier to track down the real Nasties who actually know what they are doing.
I'm only using Syn floods as an example...every known DDoS method has an easily identifiable pattern. That's what needs to be defined and eliminated from the 'high risk' address spaces...namely the consumer address space each ISP maintains and manages.
It's easy to say 'can't be done', it's much harder to say 'might be done', and trying to do it. That's doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
I think you're missing the point. A well designed syn flood needs to use a spoofed IP to be successful. Sure, you can distribute this across many clients that will use their actual address, but again, it's easy to detect and stop that *at the source* if you put intelligent stateful filtering at the ISP's ingress (the last mile connection aggregation point to the users)
That way, the 'attack' never materializes....it's stopped at its source. My whole point is that it would be easy enough to design an intelligent filtering mechanism that would spot the signature of the attack (repeated syn's against the same host, with relatively little sequential packets after that...in other words, too many sessions attempted, not enough actual data transferred)
Because the attack would never materialize, the lIRCer won't get his jollies...at least not this way.
Ideally, inside your own network, you have enough insight and control to track down the source of the Bad Things(TM) and shut them down. Not to flame or anything, but if you or your IT team can't accomplish that, get a new IT Team.
Seriously, it's easy enough to back track the source of heavy data streams or malformed packets. Once you isolate the subnet, it's easy enough to track down a MAC address.
As far as building a version to go after RFC 1918 addresses (Which you mentioned) that's pretty much irrelevant, since this type of thing would simply go after addresses (manually defined or automatically generated in response to the source IP of incoming attacks) of any kind...RFC1918 or not.
It's obviuously a stupid idea. By definition, a DDoS is going to be launched from compromised machines...with a 99% probability the lowner of said machine has no idea what's going on.
But, most DDoS attacks do have easily verifiable signatures. (Ping floods, excessive SYNs from spoofed source addresses, among many others.)
Why not start helping ISP's to block this crap at the source? They are, essentially, what allowed these machines to be zombified in the first place. Aggregators and headends should already have the intelligence to block IP spoofs, which eliminates SYN floods. It shouldn't be too difficult to imagine blocking an excessive amount of outbound (inbound from the ISP's customer base) ICMP packets...say...10% or more packets are ICMP=no YUO. (arbitrary figure, it could be less, it could be more).
If nothing else, build some intelligence into backbone packet inspection (yes, I am aware of the vast amount of cycles this would take...but everything can be ported to ASICs at some point), such that vast amounts of packets, with duplicate signatures could be throttled back or dropped if a DDoS is detected.
In short, we know we can't educate the lusers, but if the ISP's distributed the cost of such an implementation among all users, I'd imagine most people wouldn't even notice the cost increase.
There's some other ideas floating around in my head, but they aren't fully formulated yet.
On a more serious note, and I am probably just a loser, (quiet you), but perhaps you could take it easy on the folks who don't follow the SCO debacle with baited breath, and explain what you mean instead of using archaic pseudonyms for actual events?
The problem with this is that Kodak did not invent, nor make any particular good strides with, digital photography.
In fact, Polaroid (IIRC)in its previous incarnation invented the first megapixel digital camera back in 1990 or so. At the time, the marketing geniuses working there told management that there would never be a market for it.
It was about that same time that Polaroid won a huge patent violation lawsuit against Kodak surrounding 'instant photography'.
Come to think of it, Polaroid (if the new version of it still holds the original patents) could probably sue every digital camera maker world wide. Hey! It's SCOlaroid!
I, for one, use my blog not only for something to do that keeps me from playing video games, but it's a simple and easy method to keep my family and friends up to date on the inane and silly things going on in my household.
The primary reason I write on my blog is to do just that...write. It helps me to polish what little skill I may have, and keep the 'writing juices' flowing. I, like many unpublished writers (well, I had some poetry published in college, but that and $1.50 will get you a coffee at Starbuck's), still keep hope alive in the back of my mind that someday I will actually get a story or a novel published. I write my blog as a way of keeping my typing skills up, without worrying about excessive editing or typos. Occasionally, I'll actually have something of (what I consider) import to say, and I'll say it on my blog.
But guess what? Usually those are things that are fairly common to the human condition. As an example, what happens if I happen to be watching CNN and see a completely obvious falsehood presented as fact. I can go to their story on line, read it, and judge whether it was a mistake or not. If the error exists online, I can link to it in my blog, and post my correction. But, and this is the important part, I am VERY likely not the only person to do so. I am also VERY likely not to be the only person with a particular viewpoint, especially in the blogging community. People with viewpoints like to express them. It's not even remotely odd that many people, sharing the same viewpoint, would link to the same items on their blogs.
In fact, there is a much better book (well...maybe not MUCH better, I loved Starship Troopers) by John Steakley (might be Robert...can't remember) called 'Armor'. The exoskeleton is the centerpiece of one of the best sci-fi books of all time. The story itself is centered around much of the moral and ethical implications of such technology used for militaristic purposes, but it is very well written and completely engaging.
Just thought I would throw that in for folks who mentioned Heinlein but may not have read Steakley's 'Armor'. (It's available on Amazon for about $8....ISBN 0886773687....and it is John Steakley...not Robert)
In Soviet Russia...
on
Borg Cube Case
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
When I go to make a comment on/., and, because I type extremely fast, I hit 'submit' before the '20 second rule' has expired. Then, I have to wait *another* 20 seconds, but sometimes I los track of elapsed time, and click at 19 seconds, and have to wait another 20 seconds..ARGGHHH!!
Or, when I click submit, just as I notice that I put in a borked HTML tag...
Um, they are related in that they can both use the internet to plan and carry out illegal acts. Are they related on the level of "terrorists are pedophiles" or "pedophiles are terrorists"? Um, of course not.
Then why bring it up in your post? Criminals the world over use paper to plan and carry out plans as well...do we eliminate paper? Your argument is specious. This is a common debate tactic of introducing something that is fairly universal or constant ("terrorism is bad, mmkay?") to lure people's general attitude to one of disdain.
So, if you found a website that allowed and developed a fantasy about nuking a major city, would you just let it go?
Absolutely. The movie 'Sum of All Fears' had a pretty good example of nuking a city.
The internet is not just a publishing medium, it is a *collaboration* medium. And what people are allowed to collobarate on freely must be checked because there are some seriously deviant people who don't want to keep their fantasies in between their ears.
This is exactly what scares the fuck out of me. You say it's a collaboration medium, allowing people to freely collaborate. In the very next sentence, you say that people allowed to freely collaborate must be checked on! Checked on by who? According to what criteria? With what authorization? You, in one sentence, have abandoned all of your right to privacy...and worse yet...mine. And you did it without my consent...
This is far from knee-jerk. I'm talking about preventing the use of the internet for collaborative crime. And, yes, society has not just a right, but a *responsibility* to prevent the aborrent folks from fucking up the world.
But that's just the point...no one has made any real, scientific, causal connection between a site that indulges a fantasy, and the physical illegal act. It can just as easily be argued that these websites allow people to act out fantasies in a safe manner. But, in your zeal to 'protect society' from those you deem different, you jump to the conclusion that, because you don't agree with it, there must be a simple root cause...and hey look! A website!
Pointing out that I am a member of society is yet another specious attempt at drawing a line between 'us' and 'them'.
I am sick to death of people trying to impose *unreasonable* and *unrealistic* constraints on what I can think, feel, wish, dream, or fantasize about. I am even sicker of people who will come up with every bogus argument in the world to do exactly that, while giving up any chance at a life free from unreasonable intrusion from society's representatives. Trying to shut down a website seems okay at first, doesn't it. Until it's a website that is about something you *agree* with.
Did we learn nothing from the book burnings of the past?
I call hogwash. I'll bet dollars to donuts it's simply not true. When I can accomplish the same function, without engaging full motion of my other arm, moving my eyes from the screen to the keyboard, etc., I am much more efficient than with a single click.
I'm not a Mac basher, but saying that one button is more efficient is just blatant zealotry.
What studies? How can it possibly be more efficient? In either case, you click. In the multi-button case, you right-click based on your intuitive assumption that you want an 'alternate' action to happen.
It said that he had view a pornographic website, which contained some images of necrophilia. How do you know he wasn't more interested in the foot fetish portion, or the latex, or whatever. I bet you he also ate food prior to committing the murder. Should we ban food? Maybe just that particular type of food that he ate? Wait, did this guy wear leather? It's well known that leather is a favorite of fetishists...better make that illegal while we're at it.
Cool! It was only a matter of time before someone linked necro/cannibal fantasy websites with paedophilia and Terrorism!
The big bad terrorists are brainwashing folks via necrophilia sites! Doomed! We're all doomed!
This whole argument is ridiculous, telling me I can't express whatever the fuck I want on my own website. This isn't child porn. This is a *fantasy* fulfillment, for people with admittedly deviant tastes.
This issue is moot though...just because some 72 yo gramma in the UK wants someone to "crack down" on a "bad things" to "protect us" from "them", doesn't mean squat. If they want to force a webmaster's ISP to shut him down, he can be back up and running in minutes on a more business savvy and less intrusive host in another country.
Say it with me...there is not, and has never been, any conclusive proof that *viewing* fantasy material forces someone to *act* in mimicry of said material.
I don't see any links here, so how can you say what, exactly, anyone did or did not view? Did Ozzie make that kid kill himself? Do people really have sex with dead people after listening to The Beatles backwards?
Knee-jerk reactionism is not the answer to life's problems, people. Bad things happen, and frequently they happen to good people. This does not mean that you or anyone else has a right to tell me how to live, within a reasonable expectation. I leave you alone, I'd appreciate the same courtesy.
Now excuse me while I go watch an episode of the Sopranos, followed by Sex in the City. I then plan on going out and killing some people, gangland style, followed by some nice hot sex with wealthy, Urban-chic chicks.
I first thought they meant 'naked' as in, we won't force you to use an account on some dumbass OSP like MSN.
I have comcast, and even they still have an 'account' for me, with attendant mailboxes and stuff. I don't use them. I wish they had a separate pricing structure for those of us who just want 'speed and feed'.
SCO has issued a 'cease and desist' letter to the RSA, claiming that their use of RFID blocking technology violates SCO's IP wherein they use 'patented processes' to block RFID tag scanning. Patent searches reveal that SCO has recently hired several convicted shoplifters and their associated technologies now belong to SCO.
I can't believe people would be as short sighted as to say 'the chances are so slim' blah blah blah.
If you had RTFA, they address those odds pretty well. The odds of getting another Tunguska sized impact are roughly 1 per 1000 years. That's an *average* people. To break it down, it could theoretically happen tomorrow. Further, if you had RTFA, you would note that an object of roughly the same size as the estimated Tunguska object (150 meters across) which was first discovered this year just passed within 3.8 million miles of our planet. That's roughly 16 times (two bytes) the distance from us to the moon....or pretty damn close.
These are ideas. If they sit around and come up with 1000 bad ideas for every good one, I still don't care. That one good idea might save my ass...or my family's collective ass.
There's always people who won't believe it can happen to them, though. Look at all the folks who insisted that, because of the SF quake in 1906, that they would be safe 'for their lifetime' since it couldn't happen again. Whoops. Tell that to the folks smashed in their cars when the elevated roadway collapsed. Or, 'Well, we know Mt. St. Helens is a Volcano, but it hasn't erupted since we've been keeping track...so it'll be safe as long as I'm alive.' Tell that to those folks who chose to stay and whose bodies will never be found underneath 100's of feet of mud.
Hell, the odds of being struck by lightning are VERY slim...but plenty of research goes into preventing that, and no one complains. The odds of being shot and killed are miniscule...but look how much money we spend on prevention. But as soon as you begin researching something that could, quite literally, kill millions of people in an instant, you're branded a 'waste of time and money'.
Tell you what. Give me back the taxes I spent that went to teaching your children, and I'll gladly redirect them to fund this type of research.
According to this document, there were a grand total of 237,706 crimes in Chicago in 2002.
Of those, 172,812 (~73%) were 'non indexed' crimes. Of that total, nearly 60,000 (nearly 35%) were either narcotics violations, or prostitution.
Want to reduce non indexed crime by 35%? Make drugs and hooking legal.
Want to reduce overall crime by over 25%? Make drugs and hooking legal.
This doesn't even take into account the intangible reductions in "drug-related" crimes (i.e. gang bang murders over sales territories, deals gone bad, etc). Not only that, but it doesn't require a $45 million database, or three years to build. Just take two laws off the books. (yes, I know about all the attendant time and effort required to do such a thing...and I am blatantly ignoring it)
Slashdot Mirror
In general, you should always use a dedicated device to filter incoming packets. Consider it 'first line' defense.
Where things like ZoneAlarm and Kerio make a difference is that they filter outbound connections. Of particular note is that, if the user pays attention and doesn't randomly approve everything the software shows them, then a firewall application can not only block specific outbound ports, but it can maintain specific application+port rules. That way, rogue malware can't hijack commonly used ports, such as port 80. It also would prevent worms/viruses that use their own SMTP engine.
Data security should always be a layered approach. Take care of different threats with different (appropriate) defenses.
Okay. Here's some science.
(by the way, the 'meters' was a typo, current estimates are at 150 feet in diameter)
e=mc^2
Based on the destruction that was measured, it's not entirely difficult to estimate the amount of energy required to cause the observed effect. Since there is a definite formula for converting mass to energy and vice versa, and given that we have samples of debris from extraterrestrial objects, we can calculate an average density. Therefore, we can approximate to a fair degree the approximate diameter of a spherical object required to create the effects that we quite clearly documented.
So, how about showing us some of your (allcaps) SCIENCE!
While you're at it, why don't you try some GRAMMAR! and some SPELLING! while you're casting stones in a glass house, hmm?
Mod parent up. Damn straight. I posted on /. recently in response to a headline about an asteroid almost hitting earth.
And, by the way, I think we are actually looking for the term 'Super Caldera' here. But that's just nit-picking.
Bottom line? Far too many people (genius and (alternately), slashdotters) are willing to assume that because something hasn't happened during their frame of reference that it simply can't happen to them.
It is precisely this kind of hubris that has lead to so many of man's failures.
How is it different? You either saturate bandwidth, or hog CPU/stack resources on the target. There are many ways to do this, but all of the ones used to date are known, and have detectable patterns.
/. would so easily dismiss a simple challenge like this.
Forget it. You're right. Script Kiddies are smarter than everyone else. Let's not bother. Man...I can't believe a supposed developer (and *real* hacker community like
I know they are understaffed, what I am proposing is to let hardware do the work.
I am NOT proposing putting syn flood protection on the *target*, but rather, the source. Namely, the widely know space of ISP customer address ranges. Have the ISP's police their own customers, by throttling/dropping packet streams that conform to known attack signatures.
The more difficult we make it for them, the more s'kiddies we weed out, the less of an issue it becomes. It also makes it easier to track down the real Nasties who actually know what they are doing.
I'm only using Syn floods as an example...every known DDoS method has an easily identifiable pattern. That's what needs to be defined and eliminated from the 'high risk' address spaces...namely the consumer address space each ISP maintains and manages.
It's easy to say 'can't be done', it's much harder to say 'might be done', and trying to do it. That's doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
I think you're missing the point. A well designed syn flood needs to use a spoofed IP to be successful. Sure, you can distribute this across many clients that will use their actual address, but again, it's easy to detect and stop that *at the source* if you put intelligent stateful filtering at the ISP's ingress (the last mile connection aggregation point to the users)
That way, the 'attack' never materializes....it's stopped at its source. My whole point is that it would be easy enough to design an intelligent filtering mechanism that would spot the signature of the attack (repeated syn's against the same host, with relatively little sequential packets after that...in other words, too many sessions attempted, not enough actual data transferred)
Because the attack would never materialize, the lIRCer won't get his jollies...at least not this way.
Ideally, inside your own network, you have enough insight and control to track down the source of the Bad Things(TM) and shut them down. Not to flame or anything, but if you or your IT team can't accomplish that, get a new IT Team.
Seriously, it's easy enough to back track the source of heavy data streams or malformed packets. Once you isolate the subnet, it's easy enough to track down a MAC address. As far as building a version to go after RFC 1918 addresses (Which you mentioned) that's pretty much irrelevant, since this type of thing would simply go after addresses (manually defined or automatically generated in response to the source IP of incoming attacks) of any kind...RFC1918 or not.
It's obviuously a stupid idea. By definition, a DDoS is going to be launched from compromised machines...with a 99% probability the lowner of said machine has no idea what's going on.
But, most DDoS attacks do have easily verifiable signatures. (Ping floods, excessive SYNs from spoofed source addresses, among many others.)
Why not start helping ISP's to block this crap at the source? They are, essentially, what allowed these machines to be zombified in the first place. Aggregators and headends should already have the intelligence to block IP spoofs, which eliminates SYN floods. It shouldn't be too difficult to imagine blocking an excessive amount of outbound (inbound from the ISP's customer base) ICMP packets...say...10% or more packets are ICMP=no YUO. (arbitrary figure, it could be less, it could be more).
If nothing else, build some intelligence into backbone packet inspection (yes, I am aware of the vast amount of cycles this would take...but everything can be ported to ASICs at some point), such that vast amounts of packets, with duplicate signatures could be throttled back or dropped if a DDoS is detected.
In short, we know we can't educate the lusers, but if the ISP's distributed the cost of such an implementation among all users, I'd imagine most people wouldn't even notice the cost increase.
There's some other ideas floating around in my head, but they aren't fully formulated yet.
Can they introduce me to Jamie Lee Curtis?
On a more serious note, and I am probably just a loser, (quiet you), but perhaps you could take it easy on the folks who don't follow the SCO debacle with baited breath, and explain what you mean instead of using archaic pseudonyms for actual events?
The problem with this is that Kodak did not invent, nor make any particular good strides with, digital photography.
In fact, Polaroid (IIRC)in its previous incarnation invented the first megapixel digital camera back in 1990 or so. At the time, the marketing geniuses working there told management that there would never be a market for it.
It was about that same time that Polaroid won a huge patent violation lawsuit against Kodak surrounding 'instant photography'.
Come to think of it, Polaroid (if the new version of it still holds the original patents) could probably sue every digital camera maker world wide. Hey! It's SCOlaroid!
okay...the last part was a joke...but?
Mod parent up. Well spoken.
I, for one, use my blog not only for something to do that keeps me from playing video games, but it's a simple and easy method to keep my family and friends up to date on the inane and silly things going on in my household.
The primary reason I write on my blog is to do just that...write. It helps me to polish what little skill I may have, and keep the 'writing juices' flowing. I, like many unpublished writers (well, I had some poetry published in college, but that and $1.50 will get you a coffee at Starbuck's), still keep hope alive in the back of my mind that someday I will actually get a story or a novel published. I write my blog as a way of keeping my typing skills up, without worrying about excessive editing or typos. Occasionally, I'll actually have something of (what I consider) import to say, and I'll say it on my blog.
But guess what? Usually those are things that are fairly common to the human condition. As an example, what happens if I happen to be watching CNN and see a completely obvious falsehood presented as fact. I can go to their story on line, read it, and judge whether it was a mistake or not. If the error exists online, I can link to it in my blog, and post my correction. But, and this is the important part, I am VERY likely not the only person to do so. I am also VERY likely not to be the only person with a particular viewpoint, especially in the blogging community. People with viewpoints like to express them. It's not even remotely odd that many people, sharing the same viewpoint, would link to the same items on their blogs.
In fact, there is a much better book (well...maybe not MUCH better, I loved Starship Troopers) by John Steakley (might be Robert...can't remember) called 'Armor'. The exoskeleton is the centerpiece of one of the best sci-fi books of all time. The story itself is centered around much of the moral and ethical implications of such technology used for militaristic purposes, but it is very well written and completely engaging.
....and it is John Steakley...not Robert)
Just thought I would throw that in for folks who mentioned Heinlein but may not have read Steakley's 'Armor'. (It's available on Amazon for about $8....ISBN 0886773687
the Borg case mods YOU!
I'm so ashamed of myself.
When I go to make a comment on /., and, because I type extremely fast, I hit 'submit' before the '20 second rule' has expired. Then, I have to wait *another* 20 seconds, but sometimes I los track of elapsed time, and click at 19 seconds, and have to wait another 20 seconds..ARGGHHH!!
;)
Or, when I click submit, just as I notice that I put in a borked HTML tag...
THAT'S stress, baby.
Um, they are related in that they can both use the internet to plan and carry out illegal acts. Are they related on the level of "terrorists are pedophiles" or "pedophiles are terrorists"? Um, of course not.
Then why bring it up in your post? Criminals the world over use paper to plan and carry out plans as well...do we eliminate paper? Your argument is specious. This is a common debate tactic of introducing something that is fairly universal or constant ("terrorism is bad, mmkay?") to lure people's general attitude to one of disdain.
So, if you found a website that allowed and developed a fantasy about nuking a major city, would you just let it go?
Absolutely. The movie 'Sum of All Fears' had a pretty good example of nuking a city.
The internet is not just a publishing medium, it is a *collaboration* medium. And what people are allowed to collobarate on freely must be checked because there are some seriously deviant people who don't want to keep their fantasies in between their ears.
This is exactly what scares the fuck out of me. You say it's a collaboration medium, allowing people to freely collaborate. In the very next sentence, you say that people allowed to freely collaborate must be checked on! Checked on by who? According to what criteria? With what authorization? You, in one sentence, have abandoned all of your right to privacy...and worse yet...mine. And you did it without my consent...
This is far from knee-jerk. I'm talking about preventing the use of the internet for collaborative crime. And, yes, society has not just a right, but a *responsibility* to prevent the aborrent folks from fucking up the world.
But that's just the point...no one has made any real, scientific, causal connection between a site that indulges a fantasy, and the physical illegal act. It can just as easily be argued that these websites allow people to act out fantasies in a safe manner. But, in your zeal to 'protect society' from those you deem different, you jump to the conclusion that, because you don't agree with it, there must be a simple root cause...and hey look! A website!
Pointing out that I am a member of society is yet another specious attempt at drawing a line between 'us' and 'them'.
I am sick to death of people trying to impose *unreasonable* and *unrealistic* constraints on what I can think, feel, wish, dream, or fantasize about. I am even sicker of people who will come up with every bogus argument in the world to do exactly that, while giving up any chance at a life free from unreasonable intrusion from society's representatives. Trying to shut down a website seems okay at first, doesn't it. Until it's a website that is about something you *agree* with.
Did we learn nothing from the book burnings of the past?
I'm disgusted. Morons.
Again, CITE YOUR SOURCES.
I call hogwash. I'll bet dollars to donuts it's simply not true. When I can accomplish the same function, without engaging full motion of my other arm, moving my eyes from the screen to the keyboard, etc., I am much more efficient than with a single click.
I'm not a Mac basher, but saying that one button is more efficient is just blatant zealotry.
What studies? How can it possibly be more efficient? In either case, you click. In the multi-button case, you right-click based on your intuitive assumption that you want an 'alternate' action to happen.
Cite your sources.
You must have bought a VSC* by mistake.
*VSC=voltage to smoke converter. Made plenty in my day.
Perhaps you should read it again...
It said that he had view a pornographic website, which contained some images of necrophilia. How do you know he wasn't more interested in the foot fetish portion, or the latex, or whatever. I bet you he also ate food prior to committing the murder. Should we ban food? Maybe just that particular type of food that he ate? Wait, did this guy wear leather? It's well known that leather is a favorite of fetishists...better make that illegal while we're at it.
Cool! It was only a matter of time before someone linked necro/cannibal fantasy websites with paedophilia and Terrorism!
The big bad terrorists are brainwashing folks via necrophilia sites! Doomed! We're all doomed!
This whole argument is ridiculous, telling me I can't express whatever the fuck I want on my own website. This isn't child porn. This is a *fantasy* fulfillment, for people with admittedly deviant tastes.
This issue is moot though...just because some 72 yo gramma in the UK wants someone to "crack down" on a "bad things" to "protect us" from "them", doesn't mean squat. If they want to force a webmaster's ISP to shut him down, he can be back up and running in minutes on a more business savvy and less intrusive host in another country.
Say it with me...there is not, and has never been, any conclusive proof that *viewing* fantasy material forces someone to *act* in mimicry of said material.
I don't see any links here, so how can you say what, exactly, anyone did or did not view? Did Ozzie make that kid kill himself? Do people really have sex with dead people after listening to The Beatles backwards?
Knee-jerk reactionism is not the answer to life's problems, people. Bad things happen, and frequently they happen to good people. This does not mean that you or anyone else has a right to tell me how to live, within a reasonable expectation. I leave you alone, I'd appreciate the same courtesy.
Now excuse me while I go watch an episode of the Sopranos, followed by Sex in the City. I then plan on going out and killing some people, gangland style, followed by some nice hot sex with wealthy, Urban-chic chicks.
I first thought they meant 'naked' as in, we won't force you to use an account on some dumbass OSP like MSN.
I have comcast, and even they still have an 'account' for me, with attendant mailboxes and stuff. I don't use them. I wish they had a separate pricing structure for those of us who just want 'speed and feed'.
SCO has issued a 'cease and desist' letter to the RSA, claiming that their use of RFID blocking technology violates SCO's IP wherein they use 'patented processes' to block RFID tag scanning. Patent searches reveal that SCO has recently hired several convicted shoplifters and their associated technologies now belong to SCO.
Great. Now running GNU over Power Lines interferes with Apache. Just wait until the HAMS who run amateur radio websites hear about this.
Oh...wait...
I can't believe people would be as short sighted as to say 'the chances are so slim' blah blah blah.
If you had RTFA, they address those odds pretty well. The odds of getting another Tunguska sized impact are roughly 1 per 1000 years. That's an *average* people. To break it down, it could theoretically happen tomorrow. Further, if you had RTFA, you would note that an object of roughly the same size as the estimated Tunguska object (150 meters across) which was first discovered this year just passed within 3.8 million miles of our planet. That's roughly 16 times (two bytes) the distance from us to the moon....or pretty damn close.
These are ideas. If they sit around and come up with 1000 bad ideas for every good one, I still don't care. That one good idea might save my ass...or my family's collective ass.
There's always people who won't believe it can happen to them, though. Look at all the folks who insisted that, because of the SF quake in 1906, that they would be safe 'for their lifetime' since it couldn't happen again. Whoops. Tell that to the folks smashed in their cars when the elevated roadway collapsed. Or, 'Well, we know Mt. St. Helens is a Volcano, but it hasn't erupted since we've been keeping track...so it'll be safe as long as I'm alive.' Tell that to those folks who chose to stay and whose bodies will never be found underneath 100's of feet of mud.
Hell, the odds of being struck by lightning are VERY slim...but plenty of research goes into preventing that, and no one complains. The odds of being shot and killed are miniscule...but look how much money we spend on prevention. But as soon as you begin researching something that could, quite literally, kill millions of people in an instant, you're branded a 'waste of time and money'.
Tell you what. Give me back the taxes I spent that went to teaching your children, and I'll gladly redirect them to fund this type of research.
According to this document, there were a grand total of 237,706 crimes in Chicago in 2002.
Of those, 172,812 (~73%) were 'non indexed' crimes. Of that total, nearly 60,000 (nearly 35%) were either narcotics violations, or prostitution.
Want to reduce non indexed crime by 35%? Make drugs and hooking legal.
Want to reduce overall crime by over 25%? Make drugs and hooking legal.
This doesn't even take into account the intangible reductions in "drug-related" crimes (i.e. gang bang murders over sales territories, deals gone bad, etc). Not only that, but it doesn't require a $45 million database, or three years to build. Just take two laws off the books. (yes, I know about all the attendant time and effort required to do such a thing...and I am blatantly ignoring it)
Just an alternate viewpoint. Flame away.