"From what I understand, the government asked for web search strings alone. No identifying information at all."
Insightful?!?
Google mentions that the search data would include people searching for their own names, credit card or SSN numbers, and for text inadvertently pasted into the google search box.
The government has mentioned that if it finds anything fishy in this information, it will hand it over to investigating teams (presumably the FBI)
I'm sure you can think of plenty of other identifying information in google's search strings, including people searching for specific sets of interests, or searches relevant to their location, their company, their school, the stocks they hold, the projects they're working on, their personal websites, and many other pieces of identifying information. Merely removing the IP addresses and gmail usernames doesn't magically make the data anonymous.
"If the information the government wanted was a matter of national security... Then yeah, google should hand it over immediately, no questions asked..."
I'm actually quite glad that you don't work for google, and they instead entrust their legal advice to people who understand trade secrets, communication and privacy laws, etc. The type of people who wrote this document, in fact.
Amazing, what some people think should just be handed over without question...
"If apple switched to Windows they would strictly be overpriced hardware."
Interesting idea. Especially as I'm typing this on a £400 Mac, which is roughly the same price as a low-end beige PC, about 1/4 the cost of a decent PC, yet smaller than "miniature" PCs costing £350 just for the case.
I know Apple have long had a reputation for huge profit margins (not as bad as some, *cough*Acorn*cough*), but they're not exactly demanding the proverbial arm+leg for computers at the moment.
As to why they'd want the most famously overpriced OS to run on their hardware, that's a different question. -- Windows: £360 just to have an OS capable of acting as a server?!? Apple can do that for £70, Debian will do that for free, and Ubuntu will not only do that for free, but will pay to send you the CD!
As others have commented, there's a lot missing from this syllabus.
For example, "the implications of DRM on the public domain"
Maybe some more about the history and purpose of copyright (i.e. enlarging the public domain and preserving peoples right to copy)
"Ethical behaviour in the use of copy-preventing technology" (which could be taught using Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and other common programs which let you inhibit peoples' right to copy just by ticking the appropriate box)
"Given the population of 60 million people and taking some very conservative estimates there will be about 20 million card updates a year... That's about 100,000 card updates per working day."
Congratulations, you've just spent more time calculating the costs of this scheme than the UK Home Office has...
"Kindly explain to me how putting all of the above onto the same card makes it harder, instead of easier, for an identity thief to do his work."
Or how any card can solve identity theft when the DVLA requires you to send off every piece of identification you have to obtain a new driving license, then sends it back in standard unsecured unsigned-for post.
Ditto with online banks. Thanks to new "anti money laundering laws", kiss goodbye to all your most valuable documents for 3 weeks while they check them, and just hope nobody intercepts them on the way back.
So when you do a google search for "C++ programming examples" and it returns something in that strict superset, you won't mind that it doesn't compile?
"All Windows XP has to offer me is Cleartype and SP2"
Plus a shedload of malware, if you buy it from Dell. Programs popping up all over the time to request updates, connecting to the internet, changing your configuration, etc.
"The war in Iraq is about liberating its people, it is about democracy"
Which basically means giving it to the Sunni tribes, as they have 60% of population. No wonder they're all on TV enthusiastically voting, counting votes, and generally looking happy about the impending democracy...
"How about we explore Antarctica with robots while we are at it."
Well, if it leads to McMurdo station being removed (imagine something that looks ugly like a miltary base, is staffed by defense contractors, and sprawls like something built by americans), that sounds like a good idea...
"What I'm proposing is a system where the user sees an interface like the disambiguation page, which offers different articles for each title, including a purportedly nuetral one. So for example, the abortion article would have 3 or more texts: a nuetral one, a pro-life, and a pro-choice."
Something similar was proposed for the language differences, where you could have an "american" version with the flavor at the center of the colored whatever, distances measured in feet, and drinks measured in ounces, while the "english" version would be the same but with appropriate spelling changes. It wasn't such a good idea, because people could use it to hide problems (e.g. if the American version is wrong, the British moderator (or whatever wiki calls them) might not notice).
You could also imagine the spelling-differences spreading, for example "leftist" in the american dialect would be translated to "far right" in UK spelling.
imagine what would happen if a few major websites would do that, or something a little less radical, i.e. offering a "reduced features" version for IE users, with a box explaining the problem and pointing them to alternative browsers.
Well Google Mail offers a "reduced features" version to Konqueror users, and links to a page suggesting that it will work better on supported browsers such as IE and Mozilla. Don't think that's exactly what you meant though;-)
Well that's a confusing situation, isn't it? For years, the MS geeks have been telling us that way IE6 renders things is the de facto standard on the internet. So if IE7 doesn't follow that standard, then what? Is IE7 non-standard if you're a Microsoft Certified Astroturf Marketer? Or is IE7 the new de-facto standard, and IE6 is now non-"standards"-compliant?
How will the "design your site for IE and to hell with everything else" people cope with this transition? Do they have to start using Flash?
And what about IE5 -- I seem to remember a lot of people on slashdot coding exclusively for that because "in the real world, nobody will be using anything other than IE5". If that now has less of a market share than some of the weirder versions of unknown browsers, have those people recoded their websites every couple of years, or do they just accept that they look broken in "other" browsers such as IE6 and IE7?
Well spotted! Link. Will be interesting how the war on terrorism turns out, given such history as "The [CIA-supported] Contras were considered terrorists by the Sandinistas because many of their attacks targeted civilians."
"Am I the only one who thinks it's scary that a zero day exploit with the potential to take society back to the stone age"
I wonder if people will still be saying that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" when all the Linux desktops are still running and the Windows users' files have been deleted by the 8943rd worm this decade...
Slashdot Mirror
"Also the same reason not to get a Mac."
What, that you can't pick the colour?
Are you serious? When Vista comes out, it won't run historical games like DNF!
"From what I understand, the government asked for web search strings alone. No identifying information at all."
Insightful?!?
Google mentions that the search data would include people searching for their own names, credit card or SSN numbers, and for text inadvertently pasted into the google search box.
The government has mentioned that if it finds anything fishy in this information, it will hand it over to investigating teams (presumably the FBI)
I'm sure you can think of plenty of other identifying information in google's search strings, including people searching for specific sets of interests, or searches relevant to their location, their company, their school, the stocks they hold, the projects they're working on, their personal websites, and many other pieces of identifying information. Merely removing the IP addresses and gmail usernames doesn't magically make the data anonymous.
"Some public relations stunt. It caused their net-worth to drop billions this quarter. If I were an investor, I'd say try something else."
How much would their share price drop if the general public found out that Google was leaking their personal information to the U.S. Governement?
As Google mentions in this filing, the trust of their users is very valuable to Google.
"If the information the government wanted was a matter of national security ... ..."
Then yeah, google should hand it over immediately, no questions asked
I'm actually quite glad that you don't work for google, and they instead entrust their legal advice to people who understand trade secrets, communication and privacy laws, etc. The type of people who wrote this document, in fact.
Amazing, what some people think should just be handed over without question...
"If apple switched to Windows they would strictly be overpriced hardware."
Interesting idea. Especially as I'm typing this on a £400 Mac, which is roughly the same price as a low-end beige PC, about 1/4 the cost of a decent PC, yet smaller than "miniature" PCs costing £350 just for the case.
I know Apple have long had a reputation for huge profit margins (not as bad as some, *cough*Acorn*cough*), but they're not exactly demanding the proverbial arm+leg for computers at the moment.
As to why they'd want the most famously overpriced OS to run on their hardware, that's a different question. -- Windows: £360 just to have an OS capable of acting as a server?!? Apple can do that for £70, Debian will do that for free, and Ubuntu will not only do that for free, but will pay to send you the CD!
As others have commented, there's a lot missing from this syllabus.
For example, "the implications of DRM on the public domain"
Maybe some more about the history and purpose of copyright (i.e. enlarging the public domain and preserving peoples right to copy)
"Ethical behaviour in the use of copy-preventing technology" (which could be taught using Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and other common programs which let you inhibit peoples' right to copy just by ticking the appropriate box)
"I'm all for anything that will stop terrorism."
Nuke Britain from orbit.
(yes, I live there...)
"Article clearly states, right of the bat, that it's when you apply for a passport. So that's a point against hysterics."
You need a passport to open a bank account in the UK (unless you happen to have a Police Warrant card, one of the few alternative IDs accepted)
"Given the population of 60 million people and taking some very conservative estimates there will be about 20 million card updates a year... That's about 100,000 card updates per working day."
Congratulations, you've just spent more time calculating the costs of this scheme than the UK Home Office has...
"Kindly explain to me how putting all of the above onto the same card makes it harder, instead of easier, for an identity thief to do his work."
Or how any card can solve identity theft when the DVLA requires you to send off every piece of identification you have to obtain a new driving license, then sends it back in standard unsecured unsigned-for post.
Ditto with online banks. Thanks to new "anti money laundering laws", kiss goodbye to all your most valuable documents for 3 weeks while they check them, and just hope nobody intercepts them on the way back.
"Standards are there to reduce confusion, not to contribute to it"
Apparently ISO didn't get that memo:
Kilobyte
"C++/CLI is, in fact, a strict superset of C++"
So when you do a google search for "C++ programming examples" and it returns something in that strict superset, you won't mind that it doesn't compile?
"They are using Halo 2 to make more users switch to Vista (and to upgrade hardware)"
I'll wait until it comes out for the Mac.
After all, Halo "Combat Evolved" was originally published by Microsoft to promote sales of the X-Box, and now look where it is.
"All Windows XP has to offer me is Cleartype and SP2"
Plus a shedload of malware, if you buy it from Dell. Programs popping up all over the time to request updates, connecting to the internet, changing your configuration, etc.
"The war in Iraq is about liberating its people, it is about democracy"
Which basically means giving it to the Sunni tribes, as they have 60% of population. No wonder they're all on TV enthusiastically voting, counting votes, and generally looking happy about the impending democracy...
"How about we explore Antarctica with robots while we are at it."
Well, if it leads to McMurdo station being removed (imagine something that looks ugly like a miltary base, is staffed by defense contractors, and sprawls like something built by americans), that sounds like a good idea...
"This could be a win-win situation. NASA has an opening for a job to be filled by a Republican crony... x is unemployed."
I thought you were going to suggest Saddam Hussein there...
"What I'm proposing is a system where the user sees an interface like the disambiguation page, which offers different articles for each title, including a purportedly nuetral one. So for example, the abortion article would have 3 or more texts: a nuetral one, a pro-life, and a pro-choice."
Something similar was proposed for the language differences, where you could have an "american" version with the flavor at the center of the colored whatever, distances measured in feet, and drinks measured in ounces, while the "english" version would be the same but with appropriate spelling changes. It wasn't such a good idea, because people could use it to hide problems (e.g. if the American version is wrong, the British moderator (or whatever wiki calls them) might not notice).
You could also imagine the spelling-differences spreading, for example "leftist" in the american dialect would be translated to "far right" in UK spelling.
imagine what would happen if a few major websites would do that, or something a little less radical, i.e. offering a "reduced features" version for IE users, with a box explaining the problem and pointing them to alternative browsers.
;-)
Well Google Mail offers a "reduced features" version to Konqueror users, and links to a page suggesting that it will work better on supported browsers such as IE and Mozilla. Don't think that's exactly what you meant though
"IE7 also doesn't render pages the way IE6 does."
Well that's a confusing situation, isn't it? For years, the MS geeks have been telling us that way IE6 renders things is the de facto standard on the internet. So if IE7 doesn't follow that standard, then what? Is IE7 non-standard if you're a Microsoft Certified Astroturf Marketer? Or is IE7 the new de-facto standard, and IE6 is now non-"standards"-compliant?
How will the "design your site for IE and to hell with everything else" people cope with this transition? Do they have to start using Flash?
And what about IE5 -- I seem to remember a lot of people on slashdot coding exclusively for that because "in the real world, nobody will be using anything other than IE5". If that now has less of a market share than some of the weirder versions of unknown browsers, have those people recoded their websites every couple of years, or do they just accept that they look broken in "other" browsers such as IE6 and IE7?
"Iran-Contra"
Well spotted! Link. Will be interesting how the war on terrorism turns out, given such history as "The [CIA-supported] Contras were considered terrorists by the Sandinistas because many of their attacks targeted civilians."
"Am I the only one who thinks it's scary that a zero day exploit with the potential to take society back to the stone age"
I wonder if people will still be saying that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" when all the Linux desktops are still running and the Windows users' files have been deleted by the 8943rd worm this decade...
"I might be more inclined to believe such a comment made about drugs myself than piracy"
Talking of funding paramilitary anti-government operations, weren't the CIA making money from drugs smuggling? (Watergate etc.)
"The shopping center is private property"
If they value their privacy so much, they shouldn't invite the general public to come inside.