You rant against ad hominem fallacies and call your opponent an illiterate moonbat simultaneously. Good work.
Failing to recognize that liberal and progressive are only synonomous in the same sense that "can" and "may" are synonomous--which is to say that they really aren't but are popularly misused as such--is evidence that poor reading comprehension may not be a rock you should be tossing at others.
Your arguments are more effective if they stay on-topic. We are talking about economics, not science and not religion. We are talking about made up societal "contracts", thats all.
Yeah, I think the point he's trying to make is that torte and criminal (ergo social) laws that contradict immutable properties of the subject are roughly equivalent to religious tenants that do the same. It's a tangent, but still a lucid observation.
It wasn't a person operating a scam, it was a society that agreed the pros and cons of one economic model relating to specific transactions were more favorable to society as a whole than the other alternatives...
That's a pure theoretical ideal that is undeniably diluted in reality. Federal laws governing copyright--as with most subjects--were drafted and enacted by a small, relatively organized and self-motivated minority with specific business and political interests in mind.
The larger governed society is characteristically unorganized and apathetic. Additionally, this larger population is relatively easy to influence. Belive it or not, not all influential advocates represent issues honestly.
I can easily imagine a person/groups/companies being very effective at copying and advertising their "new" works and thus starving the actual artists of funds. Do you agree that this would be a natural outcome of that system or do you see inherent protections that would prevent it?
This assumes that one (earnings starvation) follows the the first (copying). A salaried scientist or engineer will work (create) for a steady paycheck. A commissioned artist will get a commission for art. More work, more art, more money. Industries will continually innovate with new products if counterfeits prevent existing products from generating new revenue.
Disclaimer: I haven't followed this case and don't have any opinion whatsoever regarding its specifics. I'm just responding to your meta-challenge, because it seemed fun:
Oh really? Define "resonable" (sic) then in terms which do not involve evaluation of probabilities, cretin. "Defensible."
And I hate to break this to you, but I don't have any way of verifying whether *any* encryption or complex program is secure or not. I simply don't have the brain for it, or the education for it, so from my point of view, the choice is between "trusting the smart people at Microsoft who have millions of dollars riding on being correct" or "trusting some PhD who has a lot of free time and likes Stallman." Point taken, but I would submit that--your personal motivation or skills notwithstanding--a car salesman who welds the hood shut so you can't see the engine of the car he's selling you is inherently less trustworthy than a charitable fellow who hands you a free car, its manual, the original design specs, all part numbers etc, for you and the world to study.
You may decide never to look at the second car's engine, but at least you could if you wished. That's not true of the first car.
... if Comcast is essentially attempting to disable Bitorrent, are they by any chance either violating or subverting one or more RFCs? Substitute the proper term for 'violating', that was the strongest word I could come up with quickly. According to some sources, Comcast is likely using Sandvine equipment near their headends to accomplish this feat. And I don't think you understand the nature of RFCs.
I recall that in the Early Days of the Internet, not abiding by the RFCs would get you in hot water. Especially screwing up with SMTP would do it, but even bad behaviour due to your incompetence would get your T-1 unclocked, and it would take a few calls to the powers that be to assure them that you found someone who knew what they were doing and that problem wouldn't occur again. At least not for a while. Respectfully, you're confused. RFCs exist as a standardization tool to facilitate predictable interoperability between different vendor's devices and/or between autonomous networks. They're not binding agreements.
If a device manufacturer's software/hardware is compliant with a given RFC, you can pretty much expect it to work well with another party's RFC-compliant product. Even 100% mutual compliance did not guarantee 100% interoperability, because most RFCs have sections of flexibility where vendors can choose to implement a feature or not.
Note that none of this has any binding enforcement or punitive component. Vendors voluntarily choose to comply with the RFCs for which they see the most benefit (read: profit) for their product. If they try to comply and fail, customers (or compliant parties wishing to interoperate) may complain and ask them to come into compliance, but no "powers that be" will "unclock" their T-1s or whatever. Also, in many cases, manufacturers will just choose not to comply with an RFC if they don't feel it's worthwhile.
You could be thinking of how ISPs sometimes will shut down connections to networks who, through mis-configuration or maliciousness, cause trouble. This still happens, but it was more common when the Internet was a mostly a small, close-knit community of operators. As a practice, it works best when the mis-behaving network is either a paying customer or a peer network who highly values your traffic. If the misbehaving network is someone you pay for connectivity, or a peer whose traffic *you* highly value, it's not as wise or effective.
Comcast is a big enough consumer ISP that they would be hard to bully into behaving a different way. For example, Amazon and Google get their service from ISPs A & B respectively. Let's say that ISPs A & B decide Comcast is behaving badly. So ISPs A & B stop exchanging traffic with Comcast. What happens next? Amazon and Google call them and say, "WTF are you doing?! Those are our customers you're cutting us off from!! Get us back in touch with them NOW or we're gone." See the problem?
Ultimately, this may be Comcast clinging to their ToS and 'server' restrictions, and that would mean Comcast users won't be sharing out Bitorrent files. Bummer. Pretty much what's happening, yes.
Another wrinkle, I wonder if Comcast sends forged RSTs to Comcast users sharing with *other* Comcast users. Intranetwork traffic shouldn't 'cost' so much for Comcast. From the same sources as above, it does not appear that they are interfering with subscriber-to-subscriber connections (yet).
Of course, that's not the point. Comcast is trying to avoid costs due to the volume of Bitorrent traffic that leaves them paying for NAP ports, lines to other ISPs, and routers/switches to manage all this.
In other words, they are trying to control costs by controlling usage. Exactly. And for the record, professionally as an operator of a service provider network, and personally as a residential customer of Comcast, I think what they're is doing is very wrong. I wouldn't do it to my customers, and If I had a viable alternative for home use, I'd jump in a heartbeat.
FTP servers that behave this way? Are you so stupid as to think that an FTP server sits on the wire with nothing between you and it? I'll get to thinking that all FTP servers on the interweb are safely nestled behind effective IPS's the day after I'm convinced that every PC and server on the interweb has the latest patches installed. But feel free to hold your breathe waiting for me to get there.
Our IDS automatically blocks traffic to the FTP server after you fail to login 3 times. No more traffic from your IP to our network for 5 minutes. So every 5 minutes you get 3 whacks at a password. Do that enough and it'll even email us, so we can start taking a real interest in your system. [Yawn] Very impressive and scary. Can you also configure it to email you a clue? That'd be pretty useful. Because, presumably, then you'd at least know the difference between IDS and IPS.
Is it even possible to do this? Can you make hundreds of thousands of attempts in a short amount of time? Trivially.
I mean, is it not likely that the system will restrict access from the IP address(es) and perhaps even shut down access temporarily? You just may be the most naive computer user with a/. account that I've ever encountered.
Can you provide a list of FTP servers and or host operating systems that you believe behave this way?
Assuming of course that they do not maintain multiple accounts just for the purpose of bombing. Some people can be quite vindictive... and have no life. An ugly combination. Yep.
With regard to the mod system itself, I also agree that it has flaws. I seem to be getting mod points about once a week now, but rarely use them because I'd rather comment than mod in most cases. On the odd occasion that I do mod, I mostly do it in a thread where I don't really have a dog in the fight but still am somewhat familiar with the topic, and I reward signal A LOT more than I punish noise. And by noise I mean the FRIST PSOT and goatse crap, that as you said usually gets 86ed fast by subscribers.
Occasionally though, when I want a more brief/. experience, I do like the ability to filter based on a few fairly standard tags and the mod system does give me that.
1. Exhibit A: Public Schools As an undergraduate, all of my friends who could not hack it in Engineering school became either Education or Business majors. Although I would love to teach, I just cannot afford the huge pay cut. If you are wealthy in this country, you send your kids to private school unless you happen to live in a very swanky area where the teachers happen to be paid well above the state average. And in my city, such areas also correspond to very low minority and poor populations. So why would I want government employed Doctors that get paid far less than they would otherwise?
Let me paraphrase: I have some stupid friends. I love money more than most things. Many rich parents get the privilege of unnecessarily paying LOTS of money for their children's education. Sometimes I speak in racist undertones for no good reason. Based on my own consuming greed, I'm absolutely positive that only money motivates everyone else too.
You're far too far up your own ass. You need to understand that the world does not actually revolve around you and your minute and sheltered life experience. Really.
Not that education is at all relevant to this discussion, but since you bring it up: Properly funded public schools produce comparable results for a fraction of what private school tuition costs. It's about class size, teacher compensation and enough funding for good scholastic programs. Criticizing underfunded public schools and then pointing at extremely well-funded private schools as a better option is the height of hypocrisy.
2. Exhibit B: Lawyers Unless a socialized health care system includes some provision to limit frivolous legal action, this country's broken legal system will ruin it before it gets off the ground.
The myth of rampant frivolous medical malpractice claims is an insurance industry canard used to justify high malpractice insurance rates. There is no real-life data--only worn-thin anecdotes--to back it up, since malpractice suits are subject to some of the most stringent vetting in our torte system.
3. Exhibit C: If you are Upper Middle Class Why should I vote for a socialized health care system when I worked my butt off for a big house on the big side of town? My local hospital is very swanky and includes world-class doctors. *My* health-care is excellent. If I have a sore foot, well, I can get an MRI by the end of the week. When my Mother came down with Breast-Cancer... not a problem! We have world-class cancer researchers here in Pittsburgh... and she could afford it. So now she is fine. It is probably true that on average, the socialized systems in Europe are better for the average citizen... but why would I vote for *worse* health care for me?
Let's pretend you're not a self-centered asshat and entertain your argument for a second. You seem to believe that the quality of your healthcare is a direct function of how much you pay for it. According to actual data from the WHO, that is very much not true. Though we pay three times as much as most industrialized countries, we rank poorly with regard to both longevity and infant mortality rates.
By income I suppose I'm upper-middle class, and it *annoys* me to pay an assload for mediocre healthcare. I have a boat, a slip, and a yacht club membership to pay for, as well as a college education for my son. My M3 doesn't earn it's own gas money either. I'd rather pay less for something that should be everyone's birthright and more on the things that make being "well off" kind of awesome. Wouldn't you?
Now let's get back to you being an inhumane selfish asshat. What the hell is wrong with you? You're embarrassing and I don't even know you.
4. And the #1 reason: The government is 100% guaranteed to screw it up. Enough said.
This is a masterful self-fulfilling prophecy if you fill critical operational positions with unqualified and often incompetent political or business cronies. Mega Triple Bonus Po
Though now visually represented by general terms of Excellent, Good, and Poor etc, I believe karma is still a computed sum of all mods across all your posts.
So, if you have a significantly higher ratio of good over bad mods, then your karma should be relatively unaffected by these mod-bombers.
Having run across you a fair number of times and noticing that you seem to have a "really love him or simply hate him with little nuance between" sort of presence here, I'm betting you have enough positive mods to endure quite a few -5 bombs.
The meta-mod system should theoretically mitigate all this somewhat as folks who mod-bomb will get a lot of "unfair" meta-mods, so they will increasingly lose opportunities to moderate until they lose eligibility altogether.
Most of the modded-up comments so far are of the "Nothing new here" meme. These demonstrate the problem of even getting traction on a vocabularly to discuss class issues in America. People tune it out, I would argue that they demonstrate the audience's utter lack of surprise at the idea that high school clique relationships are propogating on SNS. To many, including me, that's a relatively trite social observation, given the clique tendencies of that demographic.
While there surely is a socio-economic component to some high school clique structures, my anecdotal observation is that they are more based on the charismatic gravity of the commonality, be that social aptitude, athletic ability, intelect, creativity, emotional sensitivity, or any number of things that draw people to one another.
perhaps think its always been as it is now so why even discuss it. Or perhaps sociology is just not a popular intellectual pursuit with the general public? I mean, Paris Hilton got out of jail today you know. When a society's inclination is to take what informational junk food is handed to it, or more aptly, thrown at it, rather than seek healthier fare, that's to be expected.
Your pet class issues of the rise of the uber-wealthy upper-1% and the death of the middle class are inarguably important to our social health, but the reason they're not on the radar is a whole lot more insidious than perceptual inertia. I'd argue that it's based on a purposeful manipulation of information and its dispersion by people who have the power to do so. I wager that they predominantly belong to that group of upper-1's.
Not so long ago a majority of Americans would be very offended if you had postulated that the USA will be engaged in invasion and occupation of whole countries based on fabricated evidence and questionable pet theories of deranged ideologues combined with avarice of certain corporate elites. They would be very outraged and incredulous if you had suggested that the USA would be running what essentially amounts to a Gulag network and that its top justice officials would be engaged in "what is the meaning of is" type of parsing of the Geneva Conventions in order to justify torturing the denisens of those Gulags. I could go on. Spot on. I agree completely.
The current state of affairs here is mindboggling to me. In fact, had someone forecast it, I might not have even been offended at the suggestion...only because it would have been so far outside the bounds of my imagination that I would have written off the speaker as a total loon.
Now that it's upon us, I'm so offended by it that I've gone beyond my previous "do my homework and vote" level of civic commitment to the "campaign volunteer for someone I believe in" activity tier.
I believe they call your kind "the twenty eight percenter" Perhaps I misread the poster, but I believe he meant that he not only would have been offended, but still is offended by the way things are going, hence agreeing with your statements, as opposed to arguing with you.
I'm a senior network engineer for a large regional ISP. It's my job to design, implement, and maintain a secure network at work, and I also do the same at home. Hackers suck and I think purposeful war-driving is a really punk move.
That said, I think I can explain why, in many cases, this punk move is not illegal and certainly not a felony--without resorting to analogies at all, crappy or otherwise.
1) The factory default config for most WAPs is to transmit an network identifier and a message that says, "Are you there?" From the technology's perspective, this makes them the active party in establishing connections.
2) The factory default config for most wireless client devices is to not transmit unless one of those "AYT" messages is received from a WAP. This makes them the passive party with regard to establishing a connection.
3) This means that, according this case, if you have a wifi-enabled laptop with a default wifi config powered on within radio range of an open WAP that's not yours, you've probably commited a felony. You have gained unauthorized access to the WAP and gotten further network access through an automatic access negotiation that you *did not initiate* nor taken any deliberate steps to complete. Nice, huh?
4) This is the case whether or not you ever run a network application on your "by default"-connected laptop such as a mail client, browser, or P2P software. The access was gained regardless of how you use it--or don't. Technically speaking, you can and should be charged with a felony in Sparta without ever intentionally sending a single IP packet.
So, in essense applying the law as was done in Sparta implies that one party is criminally responsible for the *passive* default behavior of his/her computer (wifi client) while the other party is not considered responsible for the *active* default behavior of their computer (wifi WAP).
Shouldn't both parties be held responsible for their own default configs? Shouldn't the party whose device "made the first move" be held responsible for accessing the other party's computer?
Shouldn't someone have taken some intentional proactive action to be charged with a felony? I think so. Maybe I'm crazy.Z
BTW this is just not true at all:
No.. it's a FREEKING requirement for WIFI to work. A lot of clients can't connect to so-called "hidden" networks Any 802.11 client can connect to a WAP that is not broadcasting its SSID if that SSID is manually configured on the client. Any client that doesn't is noncompliant with every 802.11 standard--and in all my years of wi-fi networking, I've never encountered one that broken.
As in the other thread, you're arguning that one party--the one with a *passive* wi-fi client, running a default configuration, is criminally liable on a felony scale for turning on his laptop within range of the open WAP. You are also arguing that the coffeeshop proprietor is not criminally liable for running a WAP that *actively* seeks to grant network access to the passive client.
Punishing the passive party seems like a backward application of the law to me. If the "unauthorized computer access" law was indeed broken here, isn't it by the WAP owner, who is running a "computer" that actively seeks to connect to passive devices within its radio range without regard to receiving the owners' authorizations or not?
[strawman] Perhaps you are arguing that even if this guy's wifi-enabled laptop receives an IP from the open WAP, he would not be liable if he simply respected the owner's signage regarding wi-fi usage and completely refrained from using network applications.
Within your interpretation though, from a legal perspective, he still broke the law though. Because he still gained network access--by receiving a functional IP from the WAP--even if he doesn't use it. With both parties running default configs, the technology turns him into a felon regardless of his respect for the owner's sign. [/strawman]
So the coffee shop owner's WAP has a default config that *actively* broadcasts, not just its presence, but actual invitations to join an open network. And they're not responsible for that at all.
But Joe Schmo from TFA has a wireless-enabled laptop that has a default config to *passively* listen for invitations to join open networks--eg does NOT proactively attempt to initiate a connection itself. But he's a criminal, in this case a felon, for simply powering it up within range of the coffeeshop WAP.
And you think this is good! Nice.
You do realize that his passive laptop could not even begin *sending* IP packets until the coffeeshop WAP actively gave it an IP address on its WLAN, right? The laptop's radio didn't even begin sending transmissions until the receiver heard the invitation.
So you're arguing that the passive party is criminally responsible for his default config while the active party is completely without responsibility for their default config? I don't get it.
Shouldn't the coffee shop owner be guilty of unauthorized access to this dude's laptop? Since it did start the connection process, after all? If the WAP is essentially just a computer, who "hacked" who here?
You're then arguing that the coffee shop owner has no responsability for the default behavior of his/her WAP, which is to *actively* extend invitations to join a network.
But then you're arguing that it is a felony for someone to power up their wireless-enabled laptop--that by default is configured to *passively* listen for active invitations?
The active WAP purposefully initiates the relationship and its owner is not responsible, yet the passive laptop is the hacking device and its owner is criminally responsible? Please.
That said, here's why I don't agree in the first place.
1) Plugging the WAP into a cable modem == installing the splitter 2) Powering on and running the WAP in default mode == running a cable into my house with a big sign saying "I'm here! Use me!"
Don't try to hold me responsible for my default config if you aren't willing to take responsibility for yours.
Bad analogy. Leaving your door unlocked is a passive act. Broadcasting your SSID and configuring your WAP to offer open access is an active behavior.
Leaving your door unlocked may be a better analogy for having an 802.11 transmitter/receiver on your computer passively listening for SSIDs. The "intruder" could be analagous to a WAP that actively announces the presense of an open network and then actively offers access.
Here's a more accurate analogy: What if you put a splitter on your living room cable jack and then--without saying a word to me--ran the second cable into *my* living room with a *huge* sign attached to it that said, "I'm here! Please use me!"
Do you think I'd be stealing access to your cable if I took you up on the offer? I hope not.
That's what "broadcasting your open network's SSID" means in 802.11 wireless networking. You've got to consider which entity (computer or WAP) is the aggressor in the situation, and by design in an open WLAN that's the WAP.
You don't think that there is an implicit permission involved in the purposeful act of providing me cable access--in my own home--along with a written offer (the note) to use it?
(Analogous to broadcasting a cleartext SSID into my home from his WAP...)
Several times a relative has *unknowingly and accidentally* war-driven our neighbors while visiting. I normally have a WAP up and running for him, but twice now it's been down when he arrived. Regardless, his laptop just automatically picks up the strongest offered WAP signal and connects.
Put another way, twice now the neighbor's WAP *aggressively* offered and provided network access to his laptop without his knowledge.
Now, given that the alledged crime in TFA was "unauthorized access to computers", did he steal access to their WAPs...or did their WAPs steal access to his laptop?
After all, his laptop was passively receiving radio signals and did *not* broadcast an SSID or otherwise initiate a negotiation for connectivity...but their WAP actively did.
The best analogy that I've been able to create for an open broadcasting WAP is if my neighbor put a splitter on his living room cable jack and ran the second wire over the fence and into my living room. And then left it behind with out a word, except for a big note reading, "I'm here! Use me!"
Permission may not be explicitly granted to use an open WAP, but permission is implied by the way the 802.11 standards are designed to work.
The 802.11 standards all use unlicenseable radio frequencies, so no one can claim they have exclusive rights to broadcast or receive on them. That applies to *any* content--including IP packets.
If someone chooses to both broadcast and receive IP packets on those frequencies, it's incumbent upon them to authenticate and authorize users to whatever degree they require to implement their network's security policy.
A "website" is a collection of organized digital media, comprising at least one "webpage", stored on computers that run web service software. That server software processes local and network requests for this content using HTTP or HTTPS to listen for requests and serve content. The organized digital media can be text, photos, video, audio, interactive forms & applets, and documents of all sorts, among other types.
Users access websites using "browser" applications that interpret the semantics and intended format of the different webpages and then displays them for users. Specially linked content allows you to easily navigate within a website or to other websites. Users can also interact with some types of dynamic web content using their keyboard or mouse.
There. Does that sum it up?
That said, my dad reads seven online newspapers and three or four political blogs every morning, and buys all manner of gear & travel online, but he couldn't tell you what a website "is" in a technical context to save his life.
I commend a person wise enough to understand that they don't understand something fully. Hats off to the judge for integrity and honesty.
If we are going to address the technical question, we need to improve your technical understanding of the matter somewhat.
First, the trivial but technical: It's.GOV not.org
The top level domain (TLD) for US government sites is always.gov.
Second, "routers" do not log or specifically track email traffic in any way that could identify a particular message.
Routers may in some cases track strings of packets (flows) and summarily identify what type of application data is in those flows, but will not actually look at the data itself. Some people track flows this way to see what types of traffic normally transit their networks. But they couldn't use normal router-derived logs to tell you, "who emailed who, what, and when."
Email servers log what messages pass through them, but email is not routed like regular mail, meaning that it doesn't need to pass through a bunch of email servers on its way from source to destination. It can go:
even if the sender and receiver are on opposite corners of the Internet, so there isn't necessarily a mountain of logs to find.
Third, you have a fundemental misunderstanding of the non-technical portion of the problem.
It is against the law for any official WH written communications (email included) to be deleted or discarded, so the "WH".gov email system has plentiful logs, and all related emailboxes are backed up frequently.
The problem is that there is evidence that staffers used nrcc.org or other non-official email accounts (which are not covered by the same law prohibiting deletion) to do official business--presumably to circumvent said law. That itself is also against the law.
And it's those emails that are "lost."
Back to the technical:
How do you prove that emails are legitimate when headers and content can be easily forged? You can corelate email logs and backed up mailbox contents where possible, for one. For example, if Bob sends Diane, Ted, and Alice an email that Ted deletes (and then claims is lost or never existed), but you have a copy from Diane, you can confirm it's legitimate by corelating header and body data with either Bob, Alice or both, if you can locate traces of either of their copies.
You could look also at email server spool queue backups, backed up user mailboxes, and perhaps firewall logs for additional corelating data. My firewall logs sender/receiver of all in and outbound email.
Barring all that, you go with just the copy of the email you have in hand and get sworn testimony from just one recipient to support your assertion, I guess.
Slashdot Mirror
TMZ only broke the headline. "Stories" have a beginning, middle, and end, covering all five traditional journalism W's, including why and how.
You rant against ad hominem fallacies and call your opponent an illiterate moonbat simultaneously. Good work.
Failing to recognize that liberal and progressive are only synonomous in the same sense that "can" and "may" are synonomous--which is to say that they really aren't but are popularly misused as such--is evidence that poor reading comprehension may not be a rock you should be tossing at others.
Your arguments are more effective if they stay on-topic. We are talking about economics, not science and not religion. We are talking about made up societal "contracts", thats all.
Yeah, I think the point he's trying to make is that torte and criminal (ergo social) laws that contradict immutable properties of the subject are roughly equivalent to religious tenants that do the same. It's a tangent, but still a lucid observation.
It wasn't a person operating a scam, it was a society that agreed the pros and cons of one economic model relating to specific transactions were more favorable to society as a whole than the other alternatives...
That's a pure theoretical ideal that is undeniably diluted in reality. Federal laws governing copyright--as with most subjects--were drafted and enacted by a small, relatively organized and self-motivated minority with specific business and political interests in mind.
The larger governed society is characteristically unorganized and apathetic. Additionally, this larger population is relatively easy to influence. Belive it or not, not all influential advocates represent issues honestly.
I can easily imagine a person/groups/companies being very effective at copying and advertising their "new" works and thus starving the actual artists of funds. Do you agree that this would be a natural outcome of that system or do you see inherent protections that would prevent it?
This assumes that one (earnings starvation) follows the the first (copying). A salaried scientist or engineer will work (create) for a steady paycheck. A commissioned artist will get a commission for art. More work, more art, more money. Industries will continually innovate with new products if counterfeits prevent existing products from generating new revenue.
Er, you do realize there are 50 states + WDC, right? Maybe your folks should supervise your geography usage better... ;)
You may decide never to look at the second car's engine, but at least you could if you wished. That's not true of the first car.
... if Comcast is essentially attempting to disable Bitorrent, are they by any chance either violating or subverting one or more RFCs? Substitute the proper term for 'violating', that was the strongest word I could come up with quickly. According to some sources, Comcast is likely using Sandvine equipment near their headends to accomplish this feat. And I don't think you understand the nature of RFCs. I recall that in the Early Days of the Internet, not abiding by the RFCs would get you in hot water. Especially screwing up with SMTP would do it, but even bad behaviour due to your incompetence would get your T-1 unclocked, and it would take a few calls to the powers that be to assure them that you found someone who knew what they were doing and that problem wouldn't occur again. At least not for a while. Respectfully, you're confused. RFCs exist as a standardization tool to facilitate predictable interoperability between different vendor's devices and/or between autonomous networks. They're not binding agreements.If a device manufacturer's software/hardware is compliant with a given RFC, you can pretty much expect it to work well with another party's RFC-compliant product. Even 100% mutual compliance did not guarantee 100% interoperability, because most RFCs have sections of flexibility where vendors can choose to implement a feature or not.
Note that none of this has any binding enforcement or punitive component. Vendors voluntarily choose to comply with the RFCs for which they see the most benefit (read: profit) for their product. If they try to comply and fail, customers (or compliant parties wishing to interoperate) may complain and ask them to come into compliance, but no "powers that be" will "unclock" their T-1s or whatever. Also, in many cases, manufacturers will just choose not to comply with an RFC if they don't feel it's worthwhile.
You could be thinking of how ISPs sometimes will shut down connections to networks who, through mis-configuration or maliciousness, cause trouble. This still happens, but it was more common when the Internet was a mostly a small, close-knit community of operators. As a practice, it works best when the mis-behaving network is either a paying customer or a peer network who highly values your traffic. If the misbehaving network is someone you pay for connectivity, or a peer whose traffic *you* highly value, it's not as wise or effective.
Comcast is a big enough consumer ISP that they would be hard to bully into behaving a different way. For example, Amazon and Google get their service from ISPs A & B respectively. Let's say that ISPs A & B decide Comcast is behaving badly. So ISPs A & B stop exchanging traffic with Comcast. What happens next? Amazon and Google call them and say, "WTF are you doing?! Those are our customers you're cutting us off from!! Get us back in touch with them NOW or we're gone." See the problem? Ultimately, this may be Comcast clinging to their ToS and 'server' restrictions, and that would mean Comcast users won't be sharing out Bitorrent files. Bummer. Pretty much what's happening, yes. Another wrinkle, I wonder if Comcast sends forged RSTs to Comcast users sharing with *other* Comcast users. Intranetwork traffic shouldn't 'cost' so much for Comcast. From the same sources as above, it does not appear that they are interfering with subscriber-to-subscriber connections (yet). Of course, that's not the point. Comcast is trying to avoid costs due to the volume of Bitorrent traffic that leaves them paying for NAP ports, lines to other ISPs, and routers/switches to manage all this.
In other words, they are trying to control costs by controlling usage. Exactly. And for the record, professionally as an operator of a service provider network, and personally as a residential customer of Comcast, I think what they're is doing is very wrong. I wouldn't do it to my customers, and If I had a viable alternative for home use, I'd jump in a heartbeat.
Can you provide a list of FTP servers and or host operating systems that you believe behave this way?
With regard to the mod system itself, I also agree that it has flaws. I seem to be getting mod points about once a week now, but rarely use them because I'd rather comment than mod in most cases. On the odd occasion that I do mod, I mostly do it in a thread where I don't really have a dog in the fight but still am somewhat familiar with the topic, and I reward signal A LOT more than I punish noise. And by noise I mean the FRIST PSOT and goatse crap, that as you said usually gets 86ed fast by subscribers.
Occasionally though, when I want a more brief
1. Exhibit A: Public Schools
As an undergraduate, all of my friends who could not hack it in Engineering school became either Education or Business majors. Although I would love to teach, I just cannot afford the huge pay cut. If you are wealthy in this country, you send your kids to private school unless you happen to live in a very swanky area where the teachers happen to be paid well above the state average. And in my city, such areas also correspond to very low minority and poor populations. So why would I want government employed Doctors that get paid far less than they would otherwise?
Let me paraphrase: I have some stupid friends. I love money more than most things. Many rich parents get the privilege of unnecessarily paying LOTS of money for their children's education. Sometimes I speak in racist undertones for no good reason. Based on my own consuming greed, I'm absolutely positive that only money motivates everyone else too.
You're far too far up your own ass. You need to understand that the world does not actually revolve around you and your minute and sheltered life experience. Really.
Not that education is at all relevant to this discussion, but since you bring it up: Properly funded public schools produce comparable results for a fraction of what private school tuition costs. It's about class size, teacher compensation and enough funding for good scholastic programs. Criticizing underfunded public schools and then pointing at extremely well-funded private schools as a better option is the height of hypocrisy.
2. Exhibit B: Lawyers
Unless a socialized health care system includes some provision to limit frivolous legal action, this country's broken legal system will ruin it before it gets off the ground.
The myth of rampant frivolous medical malpractice claims is an insurance industry canard used to justify high malpractice insurance rates. There is no real-life data--only worn-thin anecdotes--to back it up, since malpractice suits are subject to some of the most stringent vetting in our torte system.
3. Exhibit C: If you are Upper Middle Class
Why should I vote for a socialized health care system when I worked my butt off for a big house on the big side of town? My local hospital is very swanky and includes world-class doctors. *My* health-care is excellent. If I have a sore foot, well, I can get an MRI by the end of the week. When my Mother came down with Breast-Cancer... not a problem! We have world-class cancer researchers here in Pittsburgh... and she could afford it. So now she is fine. It is probably true that on average, the socialized systems in Europe are better for the average citizen... but why would I vote for *worse* health care for me?
Let's pretend you're not a self-centered asshat and entertain your argument for a second. You seem to believe that the quality of your healthcare is a direct function of how much you pay for it. According to actual data from the WHO, that is very much not true. Though we pay three times as much as most industrialized countries, we rank poorly with regard to both longevity and infant mortality rates.
By income I suppose I'm upper-middle class, and it *annoys* me to pay an assload for mediocre healthcare. I have a boat, a slip, and a yacht club membership to pay for, as well as a college education for my son. My M3 doesn't earn it's own gas money either. I'd rather pay less for something that should be everyone's birthright and more on the things that make being "well off" kind of awesome. Wouldn't you?
Now let's get back to you being an inhumane selfish asshat. What the hell is wrong with you? You're embarrassing and I don't even know you.
4. And the #1 reason: The government is 100% guaranteed to screw it up.
Enough said.
This is a masterful self-fulfilling prophecy if you fill critical operational positions with unqualified and often incompetent political or business cronies. Mega Triple Bonus Po
Though now visually represented by general terms of Excellent, Good, and Poor etc, I believe karma is still a computed sum of all mods across all your posts.
So, if you have a significantly higher ratio of good over bad mods, then your karma should be relatively unaffected by these mod-bombers.
Having run across you a fair number of times and noticing that you seem to have a "really love him or simply hate him with little nuance between" sort of presence here, I'm betting you have enough positive mods to endure quite a few -5 bombs.
The meta-mod system should theoretically mitigate all this somewhat as folks who mod-bomb will get a lot of "unfair" meta-mods, so they will increasingly lose opportunities to moderate until they lose eligibility altogether.
While there surely is a socio-economic component to some high school clique structures, my anecdotal observation is that they are more based on the charismatic gravity of the commonality, be that social aptitude, athletic ability, intelect, creativity, emotional sensitivity, or any number of things that draw people to one another. perhaps think its always been as it is now so why even discuss it. Or perhaps sociology is just not a popular intellectual pursuit with the general public? I mean, Paris Hilton got out of jail today you know. When a society's inclination is to take what informational junk food is handed to it, or more aptly, thrown at it, rather than seek healthier fare, that's to be expected.
Your pet class issues of the rise of the uber-wealthy upper-1% and the death of the middle class are inarguably important to our social health, but the reason they're not on the radar is a whole lot more insidious than perceptual inertia. I'd argue that it's based on a purposeful manipulation of information and its dispersion by people who have the power to do so. I wager that they predominantly belong to that group of upper-1's.
The current state of affairs here is mindboggling to me. In fact, had someone forecast it, I might not have even been offended at the suggestion...only because it would have been so far outside the bounds of my imagination that I would have written off the speaker as a total loon.
Now that it's upon us, I'm so offended by it that I've gone beyond my previous "do my homework and vote" level of civic commitment to the "campaign volunteer for someone I believe in" activity tier. I believe they call your kind "the twenty eight percenter" Perhaps I misread the poster, but I believe he meant that he not only would have been offended, but still is offended by the way things are going, hence agreeing with your statements, as opposed to arguing with you.
I'm a senior network engineer for a large regional ISP. It's my job to design, implement, and maintain a secure network at work, and I also do the same at home. Hackers suck and I think purposeful war-driving is a really punk move.
That said, I think I can explain why, in many cases, this punk move is not illegal and certainly not a felony--without resorting to analogies at all, crappy or otherwise.
1) The factory default config for most WAPs is to transmit an network identifier and a message that says, "Are you there?" From the technology's perspective, this makes them the active party in establishing connections.
2) The factory default config for most wireless client devices is to not transmit unless one of those "AYT" messages is received from a WAP. This makes them the passive party with regard to establishing a connection.
3) This means that, according this case, if you have a wifi-enabled laptop with a default wifi config powered on within radio range of an open WAP that's not yours, you've probably commited a felony. You have gained unauthorized access to the WAP and gotten further network access through an automatic access negotiation that you *did not initiate* nor taken any deliberate steps to complete. Nice, huh?
4) This is the case whether or not you ever run a network application on your "by default"-connected laptop such as a mail client, browser, or P2P software. The access was gained regardless of how you use it--or don't. Technically speaking, you can and should be charged with a felony in Sparta without ever intentionally sending a single IP packet.
So, in essense applying the law as was done in Sparta implies that one party is criminally responsible for the *passive* default behavior of his/her computer (wifi client) while the other party is not considered responsible for the *active* default behavior of their computer (wifi WAP).
Shouldn't both parties be held responsible for their own default configs? Shouldn't the party whose device "made the first move" be held responsible for accessing the other party's computer?
Shouldn't someone have taken some intentional proactive action to be charged with a felony? I think so. Maybe I'm crazy.Z
As in the other thread, you're arguning that one party--the one with a *passive* wi-fi client, running a default configuration, is criminally liable on a felony scale for turning on his laptop within range of the open WAP. You are also arguing that the coffeeshop proprietor is not criminally liable for running a WAP that *actively* seeks to grant network access to the passive client.
Punishing the passive party seems like a backward application of the law to me. If the "unauthorized computer access" law was indeed broken here, isn't it by the WAP owner, who is running a "computer" that actively seeks to connect to passive devices within its radio range without regard to receiving the owners' authorizations or not?
[strawman]
Perhaps you are arguing that even if this guy's wifi-enabled laptop receives an IP from the open WAP, he would not be liable if he simply respected the owner's signage regarding wi-fi usage and completely refrained from using network applications.
Within your interpretation though, from a legal perspective, he still broke the law though. Because he still gained network access--by receiving a functional IP from the WAP--even if he doesn't use it. With both parties running default configs, the technology turns him into a felon regardless of his respect for the owner's sign.
[/strawman]
So the coffee shop owner's WAP has a default config that *actively* broadcasts, not just its presence, but actual invitations to join an open network. And they're not responsible for that at all.
But Joe Schmo from TFA has a wireless-enabled laptop that has a default config to *passively* listen for invitations to join open networks--eg does NOT proactively attempt to initiate a connection itself. But he's a criminal, in this case a felon, for simply powering it up within range of the coffeeshop WAP.
And you think this is good! Nice.
You do realize that his passive laptop could not even begin *sending* IP packets until the coffeeshop WAP actively gave it an IP address on its WLAN, right? The laptop's radio didn't even begin sending transmissions until the receiver heard the invitation.
So you're arguing that the passive party is criminally responsible for his default config while the active party is completely without responsibility for their default config? I don't get it.
Shouldn't the coffee shop owner be guilty of unauthorized access to this dude's laptop? Since it did start the connection process, after all? If the WAP is essentially just a computer, who "hacked" who here?
I don't agree, but let's proceed as if I did.
You're then arguing that the coffee shop owner has no responsability for the default behavior of his/her WAP, which is to *actively* extend invitations to join a network.
But then you're arguing that it is a felony for someone to power up their wireless-enabled laptop--that by default is configured to *passively* listen for active invitations?
The active WAP purposefully initiates the relationship and its owner is not responsible, yet the passive laptop is the hacking device and its owner is criminally responsible? Please.
That said, here's why I don't agree in the first place.
1) Plugging the WAP into a cable modem == installing the splitter
2) Powering on and running the WAP in default mode == running a cable into my house with a big sign saying "I'm here! Use me!"
Don't try to hold me responsible for my default config if you aren't willing to take responsibility for yours.
Bad analogy. Leaving your door unlocked is a passive act. Broadcasting your SSID and configuring your WAP to offer open access is an active behavior.
Leaving your door unlocked may be a better analogy for having an 802.11 transmitter/receiver on your computer passively listening for SSIDs. The "intruder" could be analagous to a WAP that actively announces the presense of an open network and then actively offers access.
Here's a more accurate analogy: What if you put a splitter on your living room cable jack and then--without saying a word to me--ran the second cable into *my* living room with a *huge* sign attached to it that said, "I'm here! Please use me!"
Do you think I'd be stealing access to your cable if I took you up on the offer? I hope not.
That's what "broadcasting your open network's SSID" means in 802.11 wireless networking. You've got to consider which entity (computer or WAP) is the aggressor in the situation, and by design in an open WLAN that's the WAP.
You don't think that there is an implicit permission involved in the purposeful act of providing me cable access--in my own home--along with a written offer (the note) to use it?
(Analogous to broadcasting a cleartext SSID into my home from his WAP...)
Several times a relative has *unknowingly and accidentally* war-driven our neighbors while visiting. I normally have a WAP up and running for him, but twice now it's been down when he arrived. Regardless, his laptop just automatically picks up the strongest offered WAP signal and connects.
Put another way, twice now the neighbor's WAP *aggressively* offered and provided network access to his laptop without his knowledge.
Now, given that the alledged crime in TFA was "unauthorized access to computers", did he steal access to their WAPs...or did their WAPs steal access to his laptop?
After all, his laptop was passively receiving radio signals and did *not* broadcast an SSID or otherwise initiate a negotiation for connectivity...but their WAP actively did.
Exactly.
The best analogy that I've been able to create for an open broadcasting WAP is if my neighbor put a splitter on his living room cable jack and ran the second wire over the fence and into my living room. And then left it behind with out a word, except for a big note reading, "I'm here! Use me!"
Permission may not be explicitly granted to use an open WAP, but permission is implied by the way the 802.11 standards are designed to work.
The 802.11 standards all use unlicenseable radio frequencies, so no one can claim they have exclusive rights to broadcast or receive on them. That applies to *any* content--including IP packets.
If someone chooses to both broadcast and receive IP packets on those frequencies, it's incumbent upon them to authenticate and authorize users to whatever degree they require to implement their network's security policy.
A "website" is a collection of organized digital media, comprising at least one "webpage", stored on computers that run web service software. That server software processes local and network requests for this content using HTTP or HTTPS to listen for requests and serve content. The organized digital media can be text, photos, video, audio, interactive forms & applets, and documents of all sorts, among other types.
Users access websites using "browser" applications that interpret the semantics and intended format of the different webpages and then displays them for users. Specially linked content allows you to easily navigate within a website or to other websites. Users can also interact with some types of dynamic web content using their keyboard or mouse.
There. Does that sum it up?
That said, my dad reads seven online newspapers and three or four political blogs every morning, and buys all manner of gear & travel online, but he couldn't tell you what a website "is" in a technical context to save his life.
I commend a person wise enough to understand that they don't understand something fully. Hats off to the judge for integrity and honesty.
If we are going to address the technical question, we need to improve your technical understanding of the matter somewhat.
.GOV not .org
.gov.
First, the trivial but technical: It's
The top level domain (TLD) for US government sites is always
Second, "routers" do not log or specifically track email traffic in any way that could identify a particular message.
Routers may in some cases track strings of packets (flows) and summarily identify what type of application data is in those flows, but will not actually look at the data itself. Some people track flows this way to see what types of traffic normally transit their networks. But they couldn't use normal router-derived logs to tell you, "who emailed who, what, and when."
Email servers log what messages pass through them, but email is not routed like regular mail, meaning that it doesn't need to pass through a bunch of email servers on its way from source to destination. It can go:
1) sender;
2) sender's email server;
3) receiver's email server;
4) receiver;
even if the sender and receiver are on opposite corners of the Internet, so there isn't necessarily a mountain of logs to find.
Third, you have a fundemental misunderstanding of the non-technical portion of the problem.
It is against the law for any official WH written communications (email included) to be deleted or discarded, so the "WH".gov email system has plentiful logs, and all related emailboxes are backed up frequently.
The problem is that there is evidence that staffers used nrcc.org or other non-official email accounts (which are not covered by the same law prohibiting deletion) to do official business--presumably to circumvent said law. That itself is also against the law.
And it's those emails that are "lost."
Back to the technical:
How do you prove that emails are legitimate when headers and content can be easily forged? You can corelate email logs and backed up mailbox contents where possible, for one. For example, if Bob sends Diane, Ted, and Alice an email that Ted deletes (and then claims is lost or never existed), but you have a copy from Diane, you can confirm it's legitimate by corelating header and body data with either Bob, Alice or both, if you can locate traces of either of their copies.
You could look also at email server spool queue backups, backed up user mailboxes, and perhaps firewall logs for additional corelating data. My firewall logs sender/receiver of all in and outbound email.
Barring all that, you go with just the copy of the email you have in hand and get sworn testimony from just one recipient to support your assertion, I guess.