The REAL question is, so what if it does? I'm more than willing to take the increased risks required in everyday life if it means I get to use the internet, which saves me lots of time.
Besides, now I don't have to leave my mom's basement^H^H^H my house anymore for anything other than food! I'm much safer this way, right?
First of all, I'd like to point out that this trick only works IF you set your calendar to share with the entire world. This is in no way a way to 'hack' google, as it were.
Furthermore, in the real world, this is very likely rediculous. If I'm a criminal, what are the chances that I'm going to find someone in my area that uses google calendar on a regular basis, AND has a trip or event planned with specific times that tell me when they're going to be out of the house.
If I were trying to steal something, it would be much easier to just get in my car, cruise around, find a house that looks empty, bump/pick the lock, walk in, and take stuff.
Not only is that true, but check the 4th ammendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
In theory, things I say are my intellectual property or at least belong to ME, and are thus my effects. Consider: if the government were to seize a letter you wrote to someone (which is certianly one of your 'effects') how is this any different, other than the fact that they're seizing a current over a telephone wire, instead of an actual tangible piece of paper.
Claiming that tangibility is a prerequisite for ownership is absurd. Under that logic, copyright law shouldn't exist.
Ok, so they're searching my effects. They need a warrant (actually, I don't see where it says they must have one, but I'm sure that's extra law). For this warrant, they need ALL three things:
1. Probable cause 2. Oath or affirmation 3. Something describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Lets see. The last time I've checked up on the wiretapping program... (not like I can REALLY check up, because it's a SECRET program)
1. Their probable cause has been simply people talking to other people overseas - which, in my opinion, isn't really probable cause. 2. They're rarely, if ever, getting warrants, even though there's not really an excuse to not get them (as long as they have probable cause) 3. Afaik, if they're wiretapping with a warrant, there's no way they can have a legal document open to public scruitiny (or even PRIVATE scrutiny) that presents such an enumeration.
I'd like to further add that there is a punishment INHERENT in the entire system, which is why it MUST be reserved for those convicted only. If the system, in effect, does NOTHING, then it's a useless law and should never have been passed. If it does SOMETHING, then it does it at the expense of the life, liberty, or property of those on the registry. That's basically it... so there's really no argument that can be based on the "Well, it's OK because it doesn't really do anything to the people..." approach.
Actually, this is one of the only real ways to do serious amounts of survelliance. In Orwell's day, a 1984 dystopia would've been impossible; the technological resources required to watch everyone at the same time would've been impossible.
Now, or at least some point in the not-too far future, it shouldn't be too difficult to keep itense survellience going in real-time through the use of distributed computing applications and this sort of webcam-microphone collection. If Google's desktop software were to REALLY become widespread, it would be very easy for them to package distributied computing software to analyze the behavior of people at the same time it kept an eye on them.
The only hurdle at this point, at least as far as I know, is to write software good enough to analyze that much content in real time. It seems as if we're quite a while away from that.
This is slightly worse than wiretapping w/o a warrant on the constitutional level. There's a name for a law that declares someone guilty of some offense and then punishes them for it without a trial - it's called a bill of attainder, and it's specifically prohibited.
Of course, the proponents of this law are going to claim that the law doesn't declare them guilty, and doesn't punish them, but they're basically saying that these people are guilt of SOMETHING, otherwise they wouldn't be worth being watched. And, obviously, it's easy to see how being on such a list would be a punishment.
I hate to be needlessly cruel, but did you even read the fing summary? It's about SCANNING, not necessarily hacking; if you have 250 users worth of unencrypted data, and 50 users with strong encryption, you'll probably find that the encrypted ones aren't worth your time.
I don't think that this machine can scan, decrypt, and record 300 WiFi Networks in real-time.
Just to play the devil's advocate for a moment, how do you know that the terrorism presented in the future is going to be the same as the terrorism before? Making that assumption has cost our nation many lives.
Furthermore, you're assuming the terrorism is going to come from the outside - and the group of people INSIDE the nation with the ability to carry out a large-scale attack consists of usually socioeconomically disadvanted but somewhat intelligent members.
Now, the data is already there; hell, they don't even have to do any illegal wiretapping! This seems to be a sensible precaution for very little pain./devilsadvocate mode off
Right, but increasing the sample size will increase the power of the statistical test - and with the government's resources, they would want to test more than simply 1000 people.
If they're using the records of a MILLION people, they could be doing some sort of statistical analysis. As is, it's rather clear that they're actually looking at each individual person in detail.
What you're thinking of (the time v money idea) can be evolved to provide a total image of profit for the parent company in question, especially for MMOs.
Consider the ideal MMO player for Blizzard: You're probably thinking of the hardcore dungeon crawler eager to get their hands on the latest loot and run the latest instances. In all reality, this is the absolute WORST player for blizzard. They're forced to constantly release new content for this player, listen to them whine, and fix bugs that don't affect the casual gamer. They also play much, MUCH more, which is where the real problem for blizzard comes in - if a hardcore WoWer plays 4 hours a day, they're using up the bandwidth of 4 casual players who play ~1 hour a day. Thus, the ideal population for blizzard consists solely of casual gamers who will pay their $whatever a month and buy every expansion, but not actually spend that much time playing.
Note that, while the above example is a clear MMO one, the same concept applies to ALL games; Valve, for example, also has to support bandwidth costs, and all companies have to support development costs for new content, whether in the form of expansions, patches, or periodic/episodic material.
It's hard to argue that hardcore gamers represent health in a particular game, either; look at the Splinter Cell Chaos Theory multiplayer mode - most of the people playing it are totally hardcore, and that game has no more than 200 people playing it any particular night. It's clear that the presence of hardcore gamers indicates that a given game is doing well.
Thus, money really IS the only important aspect in the long run, but in order to calculate that figure, you have to take into account your initial analysis of how much money is spent by each gamer, and then consider the amount of money they effectively block the company from getting based on the amount of the game they play.
Many legislators DO, and they do it ALL THE TIME; most of them, once elected, almost immediately go back home for extended periods of time to show their presence, and make it seem as if they're helping out their community. That ability, coupled with the massive political machinery available, forms to provide the enormous power of the political incumbency.
I doubt a single congressperson has ever considered DC a "typical American town" once in office; the dynamic is completely different than anywhere else in the nation - really, this has all been discussed and debated long ago.
By the way, I highly recommend Smith's 'The Power Game' for anyone even remotely interested in the inner workings of DC. Although it is slightly dated in terms of the facts it presents, the theories and precepts are all still functional today.
What the GPP fails to realize, I think, is that MOST people can't intuitively grasp the concepts of computing automatically, like many people on/. can. I've seen many, many people (I volunteer at a nonprofit that gives computers to children who can't afford them, and then teaches them how to use them) who don't understand the most simple of tasks, and thus need education.
Sure, computer education might be useless for many people, but it is necessary for some.
Now, I'm not advocating a "Lets all go and learn computers now, class!" approach, but the computers should be THERE, and support (in the form of classes, if necessary) should be in place for the students who can't learn how to use them. No matter how the students learn how to use them, it's a skill they need to have before they're out of high school and into the real world.
Given the serious lack of information in the PP, I thought I'd do some research.
Clearly, Stoll is FAR behind the times - his book was written more than a decade ago, and he argued that the concept of e-commerce was "baloney." Clearly, our children need to make good use of the internet today, and e-commerce is thriving more than ever (he's apparently abandoned his original stance in favor of selling Klein Bottles on the internet (http://www.kleinbottle.com/)).
I don't see how it's possible today to argue that our children don't need exposure to computing to succeed.
(Parody: "In contemporary usage, a parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject.")
(Satire: "Satire is a technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.")
Slashdot Mirror
The REAL question is, so what if it does? I'm more than willing to take the increased risks required in everyday life if it means I get to use the internet, which saves me lots of time.
Besides, now I don't have to leave my mom's basement^H^H^H my house anymore for anything other than food! I'm much safer this way, right?
You can avoid this entirely by simply marking your calendar as "private," or "share with friends only."
This person isn't hacking google, he's simply viewing public calendars. If your calendar isn't public, there's no problem.
Check TFA.
First of all, I'd like to point out that this trick only works IF you set your calendar to share with the entire world. This is in no way a way to 'hack' google, as it were.
Furthermore, in the real world, this is very likely rediculous. If I'm a criminal, what are the chances that I'm going to find someone in my area that uses google calendar on a regular basis, AND has a trip or event planned with specific times that tell me when they're going to be out of the house.
If I were trying to steal something, it would be much easier to just get in my car, cruise around, find a house that looks empty, bump/pick the lock, walk in, and take stuff.
They're on crack.
If this isn't punishment, I guess they wouldn't mind if I try to get them all on this list?
Not only is that true, but check the 4th ammendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
In theory, things I say are my intellectual property or at least belong to ME, and are thus my effects. Consider: if the government were to seize a letter you wrote to someone (which is certianly one of your 'effects') how is this any different, other than the fact that they're seizing a current over a telephone wire, instead of an actual tangible piece of paper.
Claiming that tangibility is a prerequisite for ownership is absurd. Under that logic, copyright law shouldn't exist.
Ok, so they're searching my effects. They need a warrant (actually, I don't see where it says they must have one, but I'm sure that's extra law). For this warrant, they need ALL three things:
1. Probable cause
2. Oath or affirmation
3. Something describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Lets see. The last time I've checked up on the wiretapping program... (not like I can REALLY check up, because it's a SECRET program)
1. Their probable cause has been simply people talking to other people overseas - which, in my opinion, isn't really probable cause.
2. They're rarely, if ever, getting warrants, even though there's not really an excuse to not get them (as long as they have probable cause)
3. Afaik, if they're wiretapping with a warrant, there's no way they can have a legal document open to public scruitiny (or even PRIVATE scrutiny) that presents such an enumeration.
I'd like to further add that there is a punishment INHERENT in the entire system, which is why it MUST be reserved for those convicted only. If the system, in effect, does NOTHING, then it's a useless law and should never have been passed. If it does SOMETHING, then it does it at the expense of the life, liberty, or property of those on the registry. That's basically it... so there's really no argument that can be based on the "Well, it's OK because it doesn't really do anything to the people..." approach.
Actually, this is one of the only real ways to do serious amounts of survelliance. In Orwell's day, a 1984 dystopia would've been impossible; the technological resources required to watch everyone at the same time would've been impossible.
Now, or at least some point in the not-too far future, it shouldn't be too difficult to keep itense survellience going in real-time through the use of distributed computing applications and this sort of webcam-microphone collection. If Google's desktop software were to REALLY become widespread, it would be very easy for them to package distributied computing software to analyze the behavior of people at the same time it kept an eye on them.
The only hurdle at this point, at least as far as I know, is to write software good enough to analyze that much content in real time. It seems as if we're quite a while away from that.
This is slightly worse than wiretapping w/o a warrant on the constitutional level. There's a name for a law that declares someone guilty of some offense and then punishes them for it without a trial - it's called a bill of attainder, and it's specifically prohibited.
Of course, the proponents of this law are going to claim that the law doesn't declare them guilty, and doesn't punish them, but they're basically saying that these people are guilt of SOMETHING, otherwise they wouldn't be worth being watched. And, obviously, it's easy to see how being on such a list would be a punishment.
"Even 'failed' missions such as Beagle 2 resulted in significant scientific advances..."
Yea, transformers FTW.
I was going to make a joke about ponies here, but I seriously don't think that the commercial could be more hilarious.
I hate to be needlessly cruel, but did you even read the fing summary? It's about SCANNING, not necessarily hacking; if you have 250 users worth of unencrypted data, and 50 users with strong encryption, you'll probably find that the encrypted ones aren't worth your time.
I don't think that this machine can scan, decrypt, and record 300 WiFi Networks in real-time.
Just to play the devil's advocate for a moment, how do you know that the terrorism presented in the future is going to be the same as the terrorism before? Making that assumption has cost our nation many lives.
/devilsadvocate mode off
Furthermore, you're assuming the terrorism is going to come from the outside - and the group of people INSIDE the nation with the ability to carry out a large-scale attack consists of usually socioeconomically disadvanted but somewhat intelligent members.
Now, the data is already there; hell, they don't even have to do any illegal wiretapping! This seems to be a sensible precaution for very little pain.
Right, but increasing the sample size will increase the power of the statistical test - and with the government's resources, they would want to test more than simply 1000 people.
On the contrary, this could be BAD.
If they're using the records of a MILLION people, they could be doing some sort of statistical analysis. As is, it's rather clear that they're actually looking at each individual person in detail.
It's secretly a promo for Transformers II.
What you're thinking of (the time v money idea) can be evolved to provide a total image of profit for the parent company in question, especially for MMOs.
Consider the ideal MMO player for Blizzard: You're probably thinking of the hardcore dungeon crawler eager to get their hands on the latest loot and run the latest instances. In all reality, this is the absolute WORST player for blizzard. They're forced to constantly release new content for this player, listen to them whine, and fix bugs that don't affect the casual gamer. They also play much, MUCH more, which is where the real problem for blizzard comes in - if a hardcore WoWer plays 4 hours a day, they're using up the bandwidth of 4 casual players who play ~1 hour a day. Thus, the ideal population for blizzard consists solely of casual gamers who will pay their $whatever a month and buy every expansion, but not actually spend that much time playing.
Note that, while the above example is a clear MMO one, the same concept applies to ALL games; Valve, for example, also has to support bandwidth costs, and all companies have to support development costs for new content, whether in the form of expansions, patches, or periodic/episodic material.
It's hard to argue that hardcore gamers represent health in a particular game, either; look at the Splinter Cell Chaos Theory multiplayer mode - most of the people playing it are totally hardcore, and that game has no more than 200 people playing it any particular night. It's clear that the presence of hardcore gamers indicates that a given game is doing well.
Thus, money really IS the only important aspect in the long run, but in order to calculate that figure, you have to take into account your initial analysis of how much money is spent by each gamer, and then consider the amount of money they effectively block the company from getting based on the amount of the game they play.
Many legislators DO, and they do it ALL THE TIME; most of them, once elected, almost immediately go back home for extended periods of time to show their presence, and make it seem as if they're helping out their community. That ability, coupled with the massive political machinery available, forms to provide the enormous power of the political incumbency.
I doubt a single congressperson has ever considered DC a "typical American town" once in office; the dynamic is completely different than anywhere else in the nation - really, this has all been discussed and debated long ago.
By the way, I highly recommend Smith's 'The Power Game' for anyone even remotely interested in the inner workings of DC. Although it is slightly dated in terms of the facts it presents, the theories and precepts are all still functional today.
That's hardly complimentary!
RTFA >_
=P
Representatives are people too!
=P
What the GPP fails to realize, I think, is that MOST people can't intuitively grasp the concepts of computing automatically, like many people on /. can. I've seen many, many people (I volunteer at a nonprofit that gives computers to children who can't afford them, and then teaches them how to use them) who don't understand the most simple of tasks, and thus need education.
Sure, computer education might be useless for many people, but it is necessary for some.
Now, I'm not advocating a "Lets all go and learn computers now, class!" approach, but the computers should be THERE, and support (in the form of classes, if necessary) should be in place for the students who can't learn how to use them. No matter how the students learn how to use them, it's a skill they need to have before they're out of high school and into the real world.
If we applied that to porn, we'd just get a lot of high-def, low quality porn.
Besides, a similar implementation already exists using the web 2.0 paradigm:
http://www.parm.net/web2.0/ (SFW)
Given the serious lack of information in the PP, I thought I'd do some research.
Clearly, Stoll is FAR behind the times - his book was written more than a decade ago, and he argued that the concept of e-commerce was "baloney." Clearly, our children need to make good use of the internet today, and e-commerce is thriving more than ever (he's apparently abandoned his original stance in favor of selling Klein Bottles on the internet (http://www.kleinbottle.com/)).
I don't see how it's possible today to argue that our children don't need exposure to computing to succeed.
Under what circumstance would you build a desktop machine that powerful and not be able to boot into a zillion different OSes?
Parody's fair use, but satire isn't?
What's the difference; wikipedia has lost me
(Parody: "In contemporary usage, a parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject.")
(Satire: "Satire is a technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.")
Is the difference in the immitation?