...we need actual penalties on politicians who undermine the constitution and such likes.
Right now, they can try, try again until it gets through, because being a politician is one of the few jobs where failures have no consequences whatsoever.
Ah, you'll now say, "but come next election..." - obviously, that's not how it works. Next election, people will vote again based on posters and TV spots, not on a performance evaluation. Everyone knows that, including the politicians.
If there is no oxygen, how on earth do you think the occupants of that vehicle are going to breath?
Air, which is only about 20% oxygen.
You bet that such a train will need to carry oxygen, one way or the other. And in the event of a crash, that oxygen could be released into the vacuum, and there is your fire triangle, complete.
It would quickly dissipate into a much, much larger area (the tube) and - someone with a physics degree can certainly do the math here - probably be dissipated too much to be of use to any fire within seconds.
Unless air leaks in from the outside atmosphere, you can ignore fire as a serious hazard.
And don't tell me "it's different in Europe". I was in Germany. I can drive from Munich to Berlin faster than the ICE train. And the train ride costs $150+ each way per person.
That's because they destroyed the excellent german state-owned train company for fame and profit. Seriously.
The Bahn ("The Train Company") was working just well when someone decided that private is always better and it needs to be sold off. They prepared for that for 10 years, during which time they closed many rural train stations, added high-speed trains to only the most profitable routes, and then sat back puzzled why the "long tail" of their economy was breaking away and only the high-speed trains were filled to and often beyond capacity.
Also, they doubled prices in just a few years.
Without corrupt and incompetent politicians, we would still have a system that works in Germany. Now you have to look to our neighbours, such as Switzerland, for a working train system.
Disclaimer: I live and work in Germany. For many years I had to travel all over the place on business. I took the train whenever possible because you can work on the train (1st class), you can't work in economy on a plane, and those two were what the company paid.
Most of the issues outlined do not depend on the speed so much. A blocked (rockfall or whatever) piece tube is a death trap whether you're hitting it at 6000 km/h or 600 km/h. Given that you're probably going to sit and walk around much like in a train or plane, i.e. no belts or only during certain times, no airbag, etc. it would probably be fatal at 60 km/h.
The first problem is already solved. Underground tunnels have so much pressure from the surrounding rock on them, the additional atmosphere of pressure if you pump out the air matters little.
The second problem is also solved. Of course the trains would always stay within the vacuum tube, then the whole problem comes down to connecting two pressured tubes in a vaccuum - and we've solved that problem long ago in space travel.
Safety is the main concern. There will be accidents, there always are, and at speeds in excess of Mach 10 there won't be much left to identify the bodies.
Here it is: If you are trying to acquire funding for something on the order of billions, you need a really good answer to the question "what does it do that planes don't"?
And "New York to Vegas in one hour" is a pretty darn good answer.
And how many are applauding him on slashdot? You seem to be reading a different slashdot from me.
Different comment filters, maybe. But I was not talking about just this topic, which you are right is mostly what you say it is. The earlier stories, however, were quite a different story. It seems that the real story is slowly coming out. Go and read the comments on the first megaupload story. I still want to throw up over most of them.
He's far less a danger to the rest of the world than the bunch who seized his stuff. If they can do this to him, they might do something similar to me or you one day.
He is the reason that they might one day do it to you or me and the public will support them. That is where his danger lies. People like him are the reason that the criminalization works.
"fairly clear" sounds like a interesting standard for evidence. Where does it rank on the scale from "reasonable suspicion" to "beyond reasonable doubt"?
This is/. and not a court. The courts will judge by their standard for evidence.
Please show the e-mail in which kimble states that what he is doing is illegal in the jurisdiction he lives in.
I assume that you will trust a torrent site as being not on the side of the government or media companies in this case?
What gets me upset is how people root for him. He's the exact kind of person responsible for giving all of us geeks and hackers a bad rep. And now people on/. applaud him? Was I dozing when the crazy pills were handed out?
He deserves everything that's coming to him and I don't care who delivers it. Even if you dislike the police, you are probably happy whenever they put a murderer or rapist away. Same here. I've been nicely asked to leave cinemas because I was distributing leaflets detailing some of the movie industry actions, so don't for a second think I'm on their side. But Kim needs to be put behind bars, good riddance, and we can focus on the criminal movie industry tycoons afterwards, it's not like they're going anywhere.
Kim Dotcom simply provided a service that could be used both "legally" and "illegally"
You need to do some research.
Kim is a career criminal and has been his entire life. He's had run-ins with the law before, and he has been convicted for computer fraud before.
You obviously know nothing about how large-scale criminal enterprises work. The Mafia illegal prostitution and human trafficking places don't put up signs reading "young women abducted from Brasil inside. Ready to pleasure you thanks to two weeks of raping them into submission." - they do, however, put up signs. The signs read "laundry" or "2nd hand electronics" or whatever the front of the day happens to be.
If you had done any research on this, you'd know that the evidence we know about so far is fairly clear on what was going on. Kim and his people were running a large-scale, highly profitable criminal operation and a legitimate front business. The only two differences to the Mafia rape-cellar are that theirs was a virtual shop and that the front and real business were closely related (legal vs. illegal file sharing).
The e-mails between them show clearly that they had not the slightest doubt as to the legality of their own operation, took no steps to prevent illegal use and quite a lot to encourage it.
Contrary to Kim, those guys were quite capable. Many of them were offered jobs instead of prosecution when they were caught. Kim tried to cash in on that, when they caught him for the first time (for trading credit card numbers, if I recall correctly), he thought he'd be one of the cracker stars. They laughed him in the face and gave him a sentence.
It was a different world back then. Among other things, skills were obvious and scamming people wasn't as easy as it is today.
The dude's name is actually Kim Schmitz. But that didn't sound sexy enough for the sleazebag, so he went by several alias names over the years, partially to cover his identity (he was convicted of computer fraud for the first time in 1998). He legally changed his name to "Dotcom", but I personally disregard such clear and obvious publicity stunts.
He's a career criminal, and even back then he was disdained in his original german hacker scene. Leaving Germany was partially because he couldn't fuck people over here anymore, pretty much everyone who was anyone knew not to work with him.
He is one of those assholes who give all of us a bad name. He is a criminal, a crook, a scammer. If you wonder why normal people think that we are all anti-social half-criminals, Kim is part of the answer.
He is a real criminal, you idiot. Have they unthawt you yesterday? No matter what prison they finally throw him into, half of the people there will have done less than he has, and I'm not even counting the War on Drugs victims.
Nope, it's not the same. Security, wise, it is much cheaper. Cutting the cable and splicing it into my custom USB device is not trivial, but possible. If I cut at the right point, I could possibly even re-attach it to the keyboard so it will pass casual inspection.
...and appearing to be the nice guy is just part of the scam. He wants his money so he can move it somewhere safe to a) disappear and b) should that fail, still have it no matter how the trial ends.
He's a scumbag and always will be, he has more than enough history to make it clear that he's a career criminal. This is not a good-vs-evil case, it's an evil-vs-evil case and we, the good people, should sit back and relax and despite your feelings (which have been manipulated by PR), our job should be to make sure that there aren't two winners, like these scumbags making a deal that is bad to all of us. Say, Kim getting a token sentence in return for becoming the MAFIAAs greatest asset in demonstrating that file sharing really is evil and everything and needs to be made illegal.
Which is why every company with a serious interest in security has a smartphone policy and has had it for a while. A company I know about but can't drop names, which is part of the supply chain you need to build nuclear bombs, has one specific type of carefully screened smartphone that they issue to employees, no other phones (smart or not) are allowed on company grounds, camera and other parts are disabled in hardware and software installs are tightly controlled. Encryption and remote-wipe as well as an automatic wipe if it can't phone home for a certain time are in the package as well. No, the CEO is not excluded from this policy.
I know that taking away the mouse and keyboard dramatically reduces the number of user mistakes, but I do wonder if this isn't taking it a little too far.
This is so old and has happened so many times before that some organisations have had time to develop, test and deploy so-called "data gateways" - machines that you can put your USB sticks, DVDs and other media into, that will scan them for infection and safely transfer the files you select to your network share.
What part of his complaints do indicate a low intelligence? I agree with you that he's a PITA and probably whining for no reason, and whatever else you want.
But I don't see indications of stupidity. Maybe you are using that term in an exceptionally broad sense for everything you dislike about users?
I know nothing about you except those few sentences and yet I'm sure that the users you support like you more than they like the geeky guy who tells them they're stupid idiots - even if he is better on the technology. And I'm sure they are more likely to tell you what they actually did when it broke than give the usual "nothing" excuse.
That's the part the too many security people don't get - that trust is something that is built in mutual respect. Many security people are right in distrusting the user - because the users are in fact distrusting their security people.
Slashdot Mirror
...we need actual penalties on politicians who undermine the constitution and such likes.
Right now, they can try, try again until it gets through, because being a politician is one of the few jobs where failures have no consequences whatsoever.
Ah, you'll now say, "but come next election..." - obviously, that's not how it works. Next election, people will vote again based on posters and TV spots, not on a performance evaluation. Everyone knows that, including the politicians.
If there is no oxygen, how on earth do you think the occupants of that vehicle are going to breath?
Air, which is only about 20% oxygen.
You bet that such a train will need to carry oxygen, one way or the other. And in the event of a crash, that oxygen could be released into the vacuum, and there is your fire triangle, complete.
It would quickly dissipate into a much, much larger area (the tube) and - someone with a physics degree can certainly do the math here - probably be dissipated too much to be of use to any fire within seconds.
Unless air leaks in from the outside atmosphere, you can ignore fire as a serious hazard.
If it were that cheap it'd be "yes, absolutely, and we're going to hook up every major city as well."
I may be biased, but I would make Vegas the central hub and connect every major city there.
Who doesn't want to go to Vegas and back in a time that allows for plausible deniability?
And don't tell me "it's different in Europe". I was in Germany. I can drive from Munich to Berlin faster than the ICE train. And the train ride costs $150+ each way per person.
That's because they destroyed the excellent german state-owned train company for fame and profit. Seriously.
The Bahn ("The Train Company") was working just well when someone decided that private is always better and it needs to be sold off. They prepared for that for 10 years, during which time they closed many rural train stations, added high-speed trains to only the most profitable routes, and then sat back puzzled why the "long tail" of their economy was breaking away and only the high-speed trains were filled to and often beyond capacity.
Also, they doubled prices in just a few years.
Without corrupt and incompetent politicians, we would still have a system that works in Germany. Now you have to look to our neighbours, such as Switzerland, for a working train system.
Disclaimer: I live and work in Germany. For many years I had to travel all over the place on business. I took the train whenever possible because you can work on the train (1st class), you can't work in economy on a plane, and those two were what the company paid.
Most of the issues outlined do not depend on the speed so much. A blocked (rockfall or whatever) piece tube is a death trap whether you're hitting it at 6000 km/h or 600 km/h. Given that you're probably going to sit and walk around much like in a train or plane, i.e. no belts or only during certain times, no airbag, etc. it would probably be fatal at 60 km/h.
The first problem is already solved. Underground tunnels have so much pressure from the surrounding rock on them, the additional atmosphere of pressure if you pump out the air matters little.
The second problem is also solved. Of course the trains would always stay within the vacuum tube, then the whole problem comes down to connecting two pressured tubes in a vaccuum - and we've solved that problem long ago in space travel.
Safety is the main concern. There will be accidents, there always are, and at speeds in excess of Mach 10 there won't be much left to identify the bodies.
I see no need for a train going at 6000 km/h.
Here it is: If you are trying to acquire funding for something on the order of billions, you need a really good answer to the question "what does it do that planes don't"?
And "New York to Vegas in one hour" is a pretty darn good answer.
And how many are applauding him on slashdot? You seem to be reading a different slashdot from me.
Different comment filters, maybe. But I was not talking about just this topic, which you are right is mostly what you say it is. The earlier stories, however, were quite a different story. It seems that the real story is slowly coming out. Go and read the comments on the first megaupload story. I still want to throw up over most of them.
He's far less a danger to the rest of the world than the bunch who seized his stuff. If they can do this to him, they might do something similar to me or you one day.
He is the reason that they might one day do it to you or me and the public will support them. That is where his danger lies. People like him are the reason that the criminalization works.
Seriously? These differences can think?
Selectively quoting out of context to butcher the original intended meaning is so much fun, isn't it?
"fairly clear" sounds like a interesting standard for evidence. Where does it rank on the scale from "reasonable suspicion" to "beyond reasonable doubt"?
This is /. and not a court. The courts will judge by their standard for evidence.
Please show the e-mail in which kimble states that what he is doing is illegal in the jurisdiction he lives in.
I assume that you will trust a torrent site as being not on the side of the government or media companies in this case?
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-what-made-it-a-rogue-site-worthy-of-destruction-120120/
Alternatively:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=megaupload+internal+emails
This does not exempt him from due process.
No, it doesn't.
What gets me upset is how people root for him. He's the exact kind of person responsible for giving all of us geeks and hackers a bad rep. And now people on /. applaud him? Was I dozing when the crazy pills were handed out?
He deserves everything that's coming to him and I don't care who delivers it. Even if you dislike the police, you are probably happy whenever they put a murderer or rapist away. Same here. I've been nicely asked to leave cinemas because I was distributing leaflets detailing some of the movie industry actions, so don't for a second think I'm on their side. But Kim needs to be put behind bars, good riddance, and we can focus on the criminal movie industry tycoons afterwards, it's not like they're going anywhere.
Kim Dotcom simply provided a service that could be used both "legally" and "illegally"
You need to do some research.
Kim is a career criminal and has been his entire life. He's had run-ins with the law before, and he has been convicted for computer fraud before.
You obviously know nothing about how large-scale criminal enterprises work. The Mafia illegal prostitution and human trafficking places don't put up signs reading "young women abducted from Brasil inside. Ready to pleasure you thanks to two weeks of raping them into submission." - they do, however, put up signs. The signs read "laundry" or "2nd hand electronics" or whatever the front of the day happens to be.
If you had done any research on this, you'd know that the evidence we know about so far is fairly clear on what was going on. Kim and his people were running a large-scale, highly profitable criminal operation and a legitimate front business. The only two differences to the Mafia rape-cellar are that theirs was a virtual shop and that the front and real business were closely related (legal vs. illegal file sharing).
The e-mails between them show clearly that they had not the slightest doubt as to the legality of their own operation, took no steps to prevent illegal use and quite a lot to encourage it.
Contrary to Kim, those guys were quite capable. Many of them were offered jobs instead of prosecution when they were caught. Kim tried to cash in on that, when they caught him for the first time (for trading credit card numbers, if I recall correctly), he thought he'd be one of the cracker stars. They laughed him in the face and gave him a sentence.
It was a different world back then. Among other things, skills were obvious and scamming people wasn't as easy as it is today.
The dude's name is actually Kim Schmitz. But that didn't sound sexy enough for the sleazebag, so he went by several alias names over the years, partially to cover his identity (he was convicted of computer fraud for the first time in 1998). He legally changed his name to "Dotcom", but I personally disregard such clear and obvious publicity stunts.
He's a career criminal, and even back then he was disdained in his original german hacker scene. Leaving Germany was partially because he couldn't fuck people over here anymore, pretty much everyone who was anyone knew not to work with him.
He is one of those assholes who give all of us a bad name. He is a criminal, a crook, a scammer. If you wonder why normal people think that we are all anti-social half-criminals, Kim is part of the answer.
Are we really going to convict this guy before he has his day in court?
Yes. We can do that, because we aren't a court of law. Our convictions counts for nothing. We have a conviction in the third meaning of the word.
He is a real criminal, you idiot. Have they unthawt you yesterday? No matter what prison they finally throw him into, half of the people there will have done less than he has, and I'm not even counting the War on Drugs victims.
Nope, it's not the same. Security, wise, it is much cheaper. Cutting the cable and splicing it into my custom USB device is not trivial, but possible. If I cut at the right point, I could possibly even re-attach it to the keyboard so it will pass casual inspection.
...and appearing to be the nice guy is just part of the scam. He wants his money so he can move it somewhere safe to a) disappear and b) should that fail, still have it no matter how the trial ends.
He's a scumbag and always will be, he has more than enough history to make it clear that he's a career criminal. This is not a good-vs-evil case, it's an evil-vs-evil case and we, the good people, should sit back and relax and despite your feelings (which have been manipulated by PR), our job should be to make sure that there aren't two winners, like these scumbags making a deal that is bad to all of us. Say, Kim getting a token sentence in return for becoming the MAFIAAs greatest asset in demonstrating that file sharing really is evil and everything and needs to be made illegal.
Of course, if it's a civil case, then the FBI would not be involved.
Personally, I'd target smartphones.
Which is why every company with a serious interest in security has a smartphone policy and has had it for a while. A company I know about but can't drop names, which is part of the supply chain you need to build nuclear bombs, has one specific type of carefully screened smartphone that they issue to employees, no other phones (smart or not) are allowed on company grounds, camera and other parts are disabled in hardware and software installs are tightly controlled. Encryption and remote-wipe as well as an automatic wipe if it can't phone home for a certain time are in the package as well. No, the CEO is not excluded from this policy.
I know that taking away the mouse and keyboard dramatically reduces the number of user mistakes, but I do wonder if this isn't taking it a little too far.
This is so old and has happened so many times before that some organisations have had time to develop, test and deploy so-called "data gateways" - machines that you can put your USB sticks, DVDs and other media into, that will scan them for infection and safely transfer the files you select to your network share.
HOW IS THIS NOT A STUPID USER?
What part of his complaints do indicate a low intelligence? I agree with you that he's a PITA and probably whining for no reason, and whatever else you want.
But I don't see indications of stupidity. Maybe you are using that term in an exceptionally broad sense for everything you dislike about users?
I know nothing about you except those few sentences and yet I'm sure that the users you support like you more than they like the geeky guy who tells them they're stupid idiots - even if he is better on the technology.
And I'm sure they are more likely to tell you what they actually did when it broke than give the usual "nothing" excuse.
That's the part the too many security people don't get - that trust is something that is built in mutual respect. Many security people are right in distrusting the user - because the users are in fact distrusting their security people.