For an IT manager, biometric security will make life much easier. Gone will be all those phone calls from users who've forgotten their passwords. And there will be no more worries about insecure passwords, or even keystroke loggers, trapping passwords and passing them onto hackers and fraudsters.
Gone may be phone calls for forgotten passwords but there'll be plenty of new calls as to why their fingerprints aren't scanning. The function of accuracy for fingerprint scanners varies according to things such as the skin's elasticity. This changes with age, humidity, cuts, etc. So biometrics aren't a 100% fix. There will always be "goats," the people for whom biometrics just doesn't work well, including the biometrics professor around here who's missing a fingertips (not due to any experiment mishap, mind you). I'd also worry about the security of your stored biometric data. Hopefully it'd be a hash and not the raw data, which could be harvested and used. Then again, I wonder what the incidence of collisions in a hash that uses biometric data is?
Why does the US need such a large submarine fleet? Perhaps to counter a possible naval conflict with China over Taiwan? I believe N. Korea has a few (ancient) subs...... More tactical boats perhaps would be prudent, but....
Check out this link about plans to refit some Ohio-class boomers from nuclear ballistic boats to basically submerged cruise missile and spec-ops platforms. 154 Tomahawks can make quite an impressive. Plus, submarines are less prone to little boats full of explosives. Also, I can't cite sources, but word is that boomers like Ohios are ever quieter than hunter/killers like the Los Angeles or Seawolf-class, which would make sense when you have a larger, slower boat.
The Semantic Web is for chasing tangents. Sorry if this seems marginal to you.
My work in semantics has left me with the idea of semantics as a tool to idea related concepts, not necessarily concepts I'd regard as tangential. For instance, using semantics to recognize that an umpire and a baseball field are directly related, while perhaps Crackerjacks are tangential to the topic at hand (i.e. baseball).
My point in the virtual vs. real persona is that you cannot expect the same behavior patterns from the same people given totally different situations. My killing your character in an online death-match does not mean I would be unethical enough to kill you. Likewise, if I pick up trinkets from the monsters you have slain (clearly, they are not my spoils to take), this does not mean that I will take tips off of tables at a restaurant.
My interpretation of "virtual" versus "real" in your original post was akin to sending threatening e-mails online but always being passive in real life. So this was my misunderstanding.
Similarly, most of my 'online' activity is done from home. That does not mean that a symantec web is designed to tell the difference. In fact, just the opposite. It's designed to merge all data that's available on me into a single profile. Again, this could be misleading. If I spend 3 hours (average) per day gaming, does this make me less capable of doing my job? Maybe, maybe not. Would this change the way my employer perceives my performance? Probably, yes.
I was addressing this from a legal standpoint. The employer is legally liable for the actions of its employees on the network and therefore has a keen interest in precluding "improper" activites.
The other point which I think you are trying to make, is that if the data is out there, then it can already be searched out from other means already. This may be the case, but not necessarily.
Not sure where I say anything like that.
Given a much more personal example: If my cross-identy is posted by a friend on an obscure site, Google may pick that up. If you then trace my cross-identity into the online world, you will find many, many postings - as well as political views (mostly by the name you see me posting under now). My politics definately don't agree with those whom pay my salary. Would they hold these politics against me if they were easily traced? I don't know. I honestly don't want to find out. Point being, the symantic web (if working) would quickly link me with my politics.
The argument here being: don't post personally identfiable information on the Internet. Such semantic systems can and do work. This is just another reason to not put your information out there.
A second argument seems to be against employers using this technology to survey their employees. This is illegal. Does it mean that employers will never do it? No. But when it happens there will be a legal precedant set against it. Granted, this is assuming you don't work for the DoD, DoJ or DoE where you willingly sign away the rights to such privacy.
My greater fear, it would be just as easy for an advertiser to do this (not that they don't already to some extent), it would just be even easier. The only benefit? I may stop getting ads for things I don't need.
Oh they do do this. The question is: do they realize they're using semantics? Most likely not. Their approaches in identifying interests etc. are similar but far too coarse and inflexible to be compared to "proper" semantics, the area of linguistics.
There are major chains of stores operating under names such as "Home Depot" and "Lowes" that carry state-of-the-art camera blocking devices such as roofing tiles and window shades...
Well, crap. Now that someone's said something I'm sure these chain stores will be sued under the DMCA...
That's how it's done, and that's why it's called "semantic web" instead of "semantic centralized project". You can use an ontology defined by others, the same way that you hiper-link to web pages published by others.
I guess what I'm having trouble with is the implications of trust. In distributed public key cryptography systems the idea of trust is very binary because you can directly trust or not trust someone. You can extend that to say, "I trust people that people I trust trust." However, with ontologies the implication is that I trust every bit of information in that ontology. But I doubt that very many people would be willing to check each ontology they use. So I'm concerned with assumptions of trust where they may not be earned.
Ah, but what constitutes privacy but an obscurity of your own behaviors in certain circles.
I would disagree. I would say privay is more like cryptography in that privacy is the ability to control who knows certain information. So privacy is confidentiality.
That is to say, I may be an item scammer in online gaming realms, or in Diablo, but not in EverQuest. However, I may be one of the most honest people I know in the real world. Perhaps I have a second account that I use to Troll on Slashdot, but otherwise have this account where I try to post insightful information. You have the right to link these things, you may even have the right to link these to real world data like where I work and where I park my car. However, if I jilted someone in Diablo, do I want them to so easily find me and take it out on my car (as some people would)?
Well, this goes off on a tangent. I would argue that you're making an incorrect metaphysical and/or epistemelogical distinction in dividing your "virtual" and "real" personas. What is ethical in one is ethical in another and vice-versa.
Do I want my employer having instant access to all of my online transactions, regardless if I'm on shift or off shift at the time? Individually, these are not things that have been considered something you would even want to 'secure', yet they may be valuable to someone.
Kind of another tangent. If you're using your employer's network then legally you've pretty much given up the right to privacy. My suggestion would be not to use company computers to do anything that you wouldn't want them looking at.
Right...because you certainly wouldn't want to do anything like obscure your data through encryption. That wouldn't be secure. That's why I insist my bank lets me send my password in the clear.
No. Obscurity is putting something like your source code in a pantry and merely hoping that no one ever looks in that pantry. Encryption, on the other hand, intentionally alters the data in such a way that the number of entities who can read it are controlled. You're not obscuring that bank data because you're still sending it over unsecure, public networks, but encrypted.
And so forth. Can this lead to 'semantic spamming?' I have only just begun for one of my
two sites. I can see where this can get way out of control. Someone goes to clearplastic.com who lives in a rainy climate area. One of the semantics could say that a clear plastic raincoat is a required item. If someone's computer is set up so that it automaticaly purchases something that is required; I consider this scamming.
Seems to involve something know as semantic features. Basically, we're describing an object in terms of the features it does or does not lack. If we in turn build an ontology out of this I think it will lack the structural rigidity and integrity if we had built the ontology from the ground up. That is to say, forget all about semantic features because they lack scalability, and build an ontology by adding concepts one at a time and making sure they're properly described.
That's right. More to the point, the system supports many ontologies, and allows the best ontologies to rise to the top.
The problem I see with this is it can still allow improper associations within the ontology to exist. Ideally, one should have an expert or team of experts describe concepts within their own area of specialization. Herpetologists describe snakes, astrophyscists describe quasars, etc.
Seriously though, this could be really cool, but I imagine that this could have some very adverse effects on privacy given the amount of information that finds itself on the web. Items that are linked by obscurity in disperate places would be easily linked into a single profile (If the stuff he's talking about isn't primarily smoke and mirrors). Either way, like any powerful technology, it will have both good and bad consequences. Here's hoping for the good...
People would do well to note the principle: Security by obscurity isn't.
The "Semantic Web" is already being done in a quite sophisticated manner by computational linguists. The major stumbling block: money. It takes a lot of time (and hence, money) to build these systems and no one seems to appreciate the possible impact.
Hehe, "discovering a priori things we weren't aware of" is somewhat of an oxymoron: Websters: a priori
Hmm. Not the definition of "a priori" I was working from. Basically, it has always and will always be true that such a substance can exist. We're only now aware of this truth. Just as at one point early humans had no awareness of the truth that 2 + 2 = 4.
This is one of the things that makes you think if everything is as you know...
The Matrix anyone?
Ehhh. This is more what we know empirically. We're merely discovering a priori things that we weren't aware of previously. The Matrix was more about what we know epistemically.
"Hurrah! A rat, something to eat and drink at last!
Dunno what this transmitter thing is, must have got trapped around the creature somewhere..."
They've been using rescue rats for years in the Swiss Alps. They tie miniature kegs to their necks so stranded people can stay warm one shot of booze at a time.
I've been seeing more job postings for US/North American candidates only. I think the time difference is beginning to wear on some of the PHB's out there.
That and most of them get indigestion from all the curry.
The numbers look great on a cursory glance, but they are missing one thing important: They don't list what percentage of graduates were able to find a job within x months of graduation.
Well, the most important factor missing is what I call the GF quotient. You see, having a significant other greatly decreases your disposable income. Take my friend who graduated with a lib.arts. degree but scored a gig making video games. He just bought a new BMW Z4. No girlfriend in years. So the really important factor is how many of those IT graduates have boy/girlfriends/spouses/inflatable dolls etc.?
Obviously Bush is to blame for causing the problem resulting in salaries going down and someone else is to be lauded for fixing the problem and making them go up.
I'm not sure how it's obvious. Isn't the reverse just as likely? All the opinions on the economy I hear don't seem to be anything more than correlation.
So why was the economy under Clinton such a praiseworthy thing, but at the same levels under Bush it's something to vote against him for?
As a Republican, my knee-jerk response is "The liberal media." But I remember a very interesting analogy (yet I forget the source): "The economy handles like a cruise ship and not a speed boat. Don't expect it to turn on a dime." So it's possible, but very unlikely that Bush is 100% guilt for the recession. The more likely case is that the economy was already fragile and on course to cracking regardless if Bush or Gore had been president.
John Kerry says: "And it's Bush's fault that IT salaries are on the rise! When I'm made president I'll make sure that IT salaries are kept low! Just don't ask me how I intend to do that..."
About the "90-day withdrawl policy". In short, any withdrawl policy that is "X days" is inherently flawed. The assumption is that security is a state that can be attained. Not so. Security is a process. So the goal of Iraq should be to train and establish police and military forces that can continue the security process on their own. Any policy that says "X days" til withdrawl won't work. It may seem to work because the country will quiet down, but on day X + 1 the country will blow up like nobody's business because all the freaky-freaks know when the troops providing security won't be around anymore.
And the Wikipedia entry, to further demonstrate:
ALOHAnet
Ah, yes. "Wiki"ing ALOHAnet. Makes me feel like I'm back on Waikiki as haole try to ride the breakers (although we all know that the North Shore has the best breakers, just ask Jack Johnson).
Slashdot Mirror
For an IT manager, biometric security will make life much easier. Gone will be all those phone calls from users who've forgotten their passwords. And there will be no more worries about insecure passwords, or even keystroke loggers, trapping passwords and passing them onto hackers and fraudsters.
Gone may be phone calls for forgotten passwords but there'll be plenty of new calls as to why their fingerprints aren't scanning. The function of accuracy for fingerprint scanners varies according to things such as the skin's elasticity. This changes with age, humidity, cuts, etc. So biometrics aren't a 100% fix. There will always be "goats," the people for whom biometrics just doesn't work well, including the biometrics professor around here who's missing a fingertips (not due to any experiment mishap, mind you). I'd also worry about the security of your stored biometric data. Hopefully it'd be a hash and not the raw data, which could be harvested and used. Then again, I wonder what the incidence of collisions in a hash that uses biometric data is?
Why does the US need such a large submarine fleet? Perhaps to counter a possible naval conflict with China over Taiwan? I believe N. Korea has a few (ancient) subs...... More tactical boats perhaps would be prudent, but....
Check out this link about plans to refit some Ohio-class boomers from nuclear ballistic boats to basically submerged cruise missile and spec-ops platforms. 154 Tomahawks can make quite an impressive. Plus, submarines are less prone to little boats full of explosives. Also, I can't cite sources, but word is that boomers like Ohios are ever quieter than hunter/killers like the Los Angeles or Seawolf-class, which would make sense when you have a larger, slower boat.
The Semantic Web is for chasing tangents. Sorry if this seems marginal to you.
My work in semantics has left me with the idea of semantics as a tool to idea related concepts, not necessarily concepts I'd regard as tangential. For instance, using semantics to recognize that an umpire and a baseball field are directly related, while perhaps Crackerjacks are tangential to the topic at hand (i.e. baseball).
My point in the virtual vs. real persona is that you cannot expect the same behavior patterns from the same people given totally different situations. My killing your character in an online death-match does not mean I would be unethical enough to kill you. Likewise, if I pick up trinkets from the monsters you have slain (clearly, they are not my spoils to take), this does not mean that I will take tips off of tables at a restaurant.
My interpretation of "virtual" versus "real" in your original post was akin to sending threatening e-mails online but always being passive in real life. So this was my misunderstanding.
Similarly, most of my 'online' activity is done from home. That does not mean that a symantec web is designed to tell the difference. In fact, just the opposite. It's designed to merge all data that's available on me into a single profile. Again, this could be misleading. If I spend 3 hours (average) per day gaming, does this make me less capable of doing my job? Maybe, maybe not. Would this change the way my employer perceives my performance? Probably, yes.
I was addressing this from a legal standpoint. The employer is legally liable for the actions of its employees on the network and therefore has a keen interest in precluding "improper" activites.
The other point which I think you are trying to make, is that if the data is out there, then it can already be searched out from other means already. This may be the case, but not necessarily.
Not sure where I say anything like that.
Given a much more personal example: If my cross-identy is posted by a friend on an obscure site, Google may pick that up. If you then trace my cross-identity into the online world, you will find many, many postings - as well as political views (mostly by the name you see me posting under now). My politics definately don't agree with those whom pay my salary. Would they hold these politics against me if they were easily traced? I don't know. I honestly don't want to find out. Point being, the symantic web (if working) would quickly link me with my politics.
The argument here being: don't post personally identfiable information on the Internet. Such semantic systems can and do work. This is just another reason to not put your information out there.
A second argument seems to be against employers using this technology to survey their employees. This is illegal. Does it mean that employers will never do it? No. But when it happens there will be a legal precedant set against it. Granted, this is assuming you don't work for the DoD, DoJ or DoE where you willingly sign away the rights to such privacy.
My greater fear, it would be just as easy for an advertiser to do this (not that they don't already to some extent), it would just be even easier. The only benefit? I may stop getting ads for things I don't need.
Oh they do do this. The question is: do they realize they're using semantics? Most likely not. Their approaches in identifying interests etc. are similar but far too coarse and inflexible to be compared to "proper" semantics, the area of linguistics.
There are major chains of stores operating under names such as "Home Depot" and "Lowes" that carry state-of-the-art camera blocking devices such as roofing tiles and window shades...
Well, crap. Now that someone's said something I'm sure these chain stores will be sued under the DMCA...
That's how it's done, and that's why it's called "semantic web" instead of "semantic centralized project". You can use an ontology defined by others, the same way that you hiper-link to web pages published by others.
I guess what I'm having trouble with is the implications of trust. In distributed public key cryptography systems the idea of trust is very binary because you can directly trust or not trust someone. You can extend that to say, "I trust people that people I trust trust." However, with ontologies the implication is that I trust every bit of information in that ontology. But I doubt that very many people would be willing to check each ontology they use. So I'm concerned with assumptions of trust where they may not be earned.
Ah, but what constitutes privacy but an obscurity of your own behaviors in certain circles.
I would disagree. I would say privay is more like cryptography in that privacy is the ability to control who knows certain information. So privacy is confidentiality.
That is to say, I may be an item scammer in online gaming realms, or in Diablo, but not in EverQuest. However, I may be one of the most honest people I know in the real world. Perhaps I have a second account that I use to Troll on Slashdot, but otherwise have this account where I try to post insightful information. You have the right to link these things, you may even have the right to link these to real world data like where I work and where I park my car. However, if I jilted someone in Diablo, do I want them to so easily find me and take it out on my car (as some people would)?
Well, this goes off on a tangent. I would argue that you're making an incorrect metaphysical and/or epistemelogical distinction in dividing your "virtual" and "real" personas. What is ethical in one is ethical in another and vice-versa.
Do I want my employer having instant access to all of my online transactions, regardless if I'm on shift or off shift at the time? Individually, these are not things that have been considered something you would even want to 'secure', yet they may be valuable to someone.
Kind of another tangent. If you're using your employer's network then legally you've pretty much given up the right to privacy. My suggestion would be not to use company computers to do anything that you wouldn't want them looking at.
Right...because you certainly wouldn't want to do anything like obscure your data through encryption. That wouldn't be secure. That's why I insist my bank lets me send my password in the clear.
No. Obscurity is putting something like your source code in a pantry and merely hoping that no one ever looks in that pantry. Encryption, on the other hand, intentionally alters the data in such a way that the number of entities who can read it are controlled. You're not obscuring that bank data because you're still sending it over unsecure, public networks, but encrypted.
And so forth. Can this lead to 'semantic spamming?' I have only just begun for one of my two sites. I can see where this can get way out of control. Someone goes to clearplastic.com who lives in a rainy climate area. One of the semantics could say that a clear plastic raincoat is a required item. If someone's computer is set up so that it automaticaly purchases something that is required; I consider this scamming.
Well, this approach:
<semantic "Clear Plastic" = "waterproof, transparent, see-through, air-tight, shows-beauty, protective">
Seems to involve something know as semantic features. Basically, we're describing an object in terms of the features it does or does not lack. If we in turn build an ontology out of this I think it will lack the structural rigidity and integrity if we had built the ontology from the ground up. That is to say, forget all about semantic features because they lack scalability, and build an ontology by adding concepts one at a time and making sure they're properly described.
That's right. More to the point, the system supports many ontologies, and allows the best ontologies to rise to the top.
The problem I see with this is it can still allow improper associations within the ontology to exist. Ideally, one should have an expert or team of experts describe concepts within their own area of specialization. Herpetologists describe snakes, astrophyscists describe quasars, etc.
Seriously though, this could be really cool, but I imagine that this could have some very adverse effects on privacy given the amount of information that finds itself on the web. Items that are linked by obscurity in disperate places would be easily linked into a single profile (If the stuff he's talking about isn't primarily smoke and mirrors). Either way, like any powerful technology, it will have both good and bad consequences. Here's hoping for the good...
People would do well to note the principle: Security by obscurity isn't.
The "Semantic Web" is already being done in a quite sophisticated manner by computational linguists. The major stumbling block: money. It takes a lot of time (and hence, money) to build these systems and no one seems to appreciate the possible impact.
I'm going outside right now to change the VTEC sticker on my Civic to read "HTEC".
2+2 isn't 4!! 4 doesn't exist, 2+2 = 11
If 2+2 = 11 then an American Football team of 11 men is made up of two men and two other men. I imagine the pass coverage would be terrible.
He's probably just studied some philosophy. Get a clue. Or a PHIL minor. Or something.
All of the above.
Hehe, "discovering a priori things we weren't aware of" is somewhat of an oxymoron: Websters: a priori
Hmm. Not the definition of "a priori" I was working from. Basically, it has always and will always be true that such a substance can exist. We're only now aware of this truth. Just as at one point early humans had no awareness of the truth that 2 + 2 = 4.
This is one of the things that makes you think if everything is as you know... The Matrix anyone?
Ehhh. This is more what we know empirically. We're merely discovering a priori things that we weren't aware of previously. The Matrix was more about what we know epistemically.
"Hurrah! A rat, something to eat and drink at last! Dunno what this transmitter thing is, must have got trapped around the creature somewhere..."
They've been using rescue rats for years in the Swiss Alps. They tie miniature kegs to their necks so stranded people can stay warm one shot of booze at a time.
I've been seeing more job postings for US/North American candidates only. I think the time difference is beginning to wear on some of the PHB's out there.
That and most of them get indigestion from all the curry.
The numbers look great on a cursory glance, but they are missing one thing important: They don't list what percentage of graduates were able to find a job within x months of graduation.
Well, the most important factor missing is what I call the GF quotient. You see, having a significant other greatly decreases your disposable income. Take my friend who graduated with a lib.arts. degree but scored a gig making video games. He just bought a new BMW Z4. No girlfriend in years. So the really important factor is how many of those IT graduates have boy/girlfriends/spouses/inflatable dolls etc.?
He eats babies, simple as that.
Are you kidding? He got the recipes from Nixon.
Obviously Bush is to blame for causing the problem resulting in salaries going down and someone else is to be lauded for fixing the problem and making them go up.
I'm not sure how it's obvious. Isn't the reverse just as likely? All the opinions on the economy I hear don't seem to be anything more than correlation.
So why was the economy under Clinton such a praiseworthy thing, but at the same levels under Bush it's something to vote against him for?
As a Republican, my knee-jerk response is "The liberal media." But I remember a very interesting analogy (yet I forget the source): "The economy handles like a cruise ship and not a speed boat. Don't expect it to turn on a dime." So it's possible, but very unlikely that Bush is 100% guilt for the recession. The more likely case is that the economy was already fragile and on course to cracking regardless if Bush or Gore had been president.
John Kerry says: "And it's Bush's fault that IT salaries are on the rise! When I'm made president I'll make sure that IT salaries are kept low! Just don't ask me how I intend to do that..."
About the "90-day withdrawl policy". In short, any withdrawl policy that is "X days" is inherently flawed. The assumption is that security is a state that can be attained. Not so. Security is a process. So the goal of Iraq should be to train and establish police and military forces that can continue the security process on their own. Any policy that says "X days" til withdrawl won't work. It may seem to work because the country will quiet down, but on day X + 1 the country will blow up like nobody's business because all the freaky-freaks know when the troops providing security won't be around anymore.
And the Wikipedia entry, to further demonstrate: ALOHAnet
Ah, yes. "Wiki"ing ALOHAnet. Makes me feel like I'm back on Waikiki as haole try to ride the breakers (although we all know that the North Shore has the best breakers, just ask Jack Johnson).