Yes, but the high resolution imagery currently on Google maps typically comes from areal photos, not from satellite imagery. The news here is that the images were taken from a satellite in orbit, not from a plane.
IANAP (I am not a pilot), but I've been around planes all my life and have limited experience. A 300 foot climb followed by a sharp dive? That sounds more like a stall. Perhaps the aircraft had a problem with a faulty airspeed indicator and slowed down?
My understanding is that a loss of speed would cause the nose of the plane to rise (if there are any pilots around, I raise the question: how else could you account for a sudden 300 foot climb?), further causing a reduction in speed coupled with a rapid increase in lift. Then, past a critical point, the aircraft slows until drag overcomes lift, and the nose drops sharply.
modern aircraft are supposed to have multiple systems designed to warn pilots when a stall is likely to occur. I would speculate that wireless devices are more likely to interfere with such warning/prevention systems rather than the actual controls.
Okay, so I kid. But when your have to wait every morning for your bogged-down workstation to load all sorts of services and client side junk that IT installs on their XP boxes, you get tired of it very quickly. The system is so sluggish and unresponsive for 3-4 minutes after login that I can usually brew a cup of coffee before clicking on the start button actually has any effect. That's 3-4 minutes during which I could be reading Slashdot, er, I mean doing something productive.
There is absolutely no reason why a 3-year-old computer should take 6 minutes from BIOS to the point where I can actually click on a menu item in Firefox and get a response that is not delayed 5+ seconds. I eventually got so annoyed that I partitioned the drive and installed Ubuntu. Just don't tell anyone...
Brilliant idea... install them at airport security checkpoints and border crossings. So, let's say I'm stressed and aggravated because I'm late for my flight, or tired of standing in line being shoved around and treated like a criminal (or an animal). Can you say "false positive"?
Where I live, it's common for thieves to steal license plates and slap them on their car before committing a crime. It raises far less attention than a car with no plates, and even if bystanders copy down the offending plate number, such information is useless.
Combine a stolen plate with a stolen ID, and it would be very difficult to track down a one-time offender disregarding something like facial recognition (drive through the tollbooth every day at 8 AM, though, and I'm sure they'd catch on pretty quickly).
Another loophole is those temporary 30 day tags you get when you purchase a new car. In many states they are not unique, not trackable (in our state they just have a sharpied 6-digit expiration date in big numbers), easy to fake, and nobody thinks twice about them.
Between the splash screen redirects and the ads, this article is nearly unreadable. Here's the text for those who don't want to put up with the crap.
---- Drivers using the automated FasTrak toll system on roads and bridges in California's Bay Area could be vulnerable to fraud, according to a computer security firm in Oakland, CA.
Despite previous reassurances about the security of the system, Nate Lawson of Root Labs claims that the unique identity numbers used to identify the FasTrak wireless transponders carried in cars can be copied or overwritten with relative ease.
This means that fraudsters could clone transponders, says Lawson, by copying the ID of another driver onto their device. As a result, they could travel for free while others unwittingly foot the bill. "It's trivial to clone a device," Lawson says. "In fact, I have several clones with my own ID already."
Lawson says that this also raises the possibility of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one's own ID onto another driver's device before committing a crime. The toll system's logs would appear to show the perpetrator driving at another location when the crime was being committed, he says.
So far, the security flaws have only been verified in the FasTrak system, but other toll systems, like E-Z Pass and I-Pass, need to be looked at too, argues Lawson. "Every modern system requires a public security review to be sure there aren't different but related problems," he says. Indeed, in recent weeks, researchers announced flaws in another wireless identification system: the Mifare Classic chip, which is used by commuters on transport systems in many cities, including Boston and London. However, last week, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) filed a lawsuit to prevent students at MIT from presenting an analysis of Boston's subway system.
The Bay Area Metropolitan Transport Commission (MTC), which oversees the FasTrak toll system, maintains that it is secure but says it is looking into Lawson's claims. "MTC is in contact with vendors who manufacture FasTrak lane equipment and devices to identify potential risks and corrective actions," says MTC spokesman Randy Rentschler. "We are also improving system monitoring in order to detect potentially fraudulent activity."
In the past, authorities have insisted that the FasTrak system uses encryption to secure data and that no personal details are stored on the device--just two unique, randomly assigned ID numbers. One of these is used to register the device when a customer purchases it, while the other acts as a unique identifier to let radio receivers at tolls detect cars as they pass by.
But when Lawson opened up a transponder, he found that there was no security protecting these IDs. The device uses two antennas, one to detect a request signal from the toll reader and another to transmit its ID so that it can be read, he says.
By copying the IDs of the readers, it was possible to activate the transponder to transmit its ID. This trick doesn't have to be carried out on the highway, Lawson notes, but could be achieved by walking through a parking lot and discreetly interrogating transponders.
What's more, despite previous claims that the devices are read only, Lawson found that IDs are actually stored on rewritable flash memory. "FasTrak is probably not aware of this, which is why I tried to get in touch with them," he says. It is possible to send messages to the device to overwrite someone's ID, either wiping it or replacing it with another ID, says Lawson.
"Access to a tag number does not provide the ability to access any other information," says MTC's Rentschler. "We also believe that significant effort would need to be invested in cloning tags." He adds, "If any fraudulent toll activity is detected on a customer's account, the existing toll-enforcement system can be used to identify and track down the perpetrator."
Lawson says that using each stolen ID just once would make it difficult to track
I could also see the benefit of some stores keeping some light data on you (name, address, phone) so they can contact you but I think they should get rid of your credit card info after X days/weeks.
Indeed, this is the heart of the problem: When X = 52 weeks, or 2 years, or forever. I can understand why a hotel would want to keep my information on file for a short while, say a week or two to assure that I've been charged for my visit, or held responsible if I happened to break a lamp or a window, but I see absolutely NO REASON why a company has to keep my credit card details on file for an entire year after I have concluded a business transaction with them.
Less critical information such as my name, address, or phone number, sure. If I give this information up I understand that the company might want to use it sometime in the future to contact me. But what benefit is my credit card number to said company a year or two down the road? Is there some sort of insight that can be gained from analyzing credit card usage data? Does the information (if any) gained from such analysis really help them improve the way they do business? It sounds like too many companies have been caught up in the "if we can store the data, we will, even if it's useless" mindset.
Why would anyone pay over a thousand dollars to play games equivalent to games they would play on a console for much less?
Because, for some people (myself included), having a high-end computer is useful for more than just gaming.
I do alot of amateur video work as a hobby in my spare time, and rendering video at a decent speed requires an impressive amount of computing power (not to mention storage). I'm also into photography, and use the computer as my primary media center and DVD player. For me, gaming was almost an afterthought, but it made sense to spend about $150 more on a fancier graphics card than to buy a dedicated console.
Exactly... you've hit on the point that I was trying to get across in my previous post/rant... it's the urgency of the message that's key. That's the problem I have with Blackberries. One of my pet peeves is to be in the middle of a face-to-face conversation with someone when a new email notification arrives on their computer. Typically, it goes like this: the new mail sound plays from their speakers, they stop the conversation in mid-sentence, turn to their computer, and open their email client. They then scroll through the message rapidly before proclaiming, "It's just a newsletter. Okay, where were we?"
Blackberies can only make things worse. I actually know several people who, when they receive a new email while driving, immediately pull the Blackberry out of their pocket and not only read it, but immediately start thumbing out a reply message!
And since I spend NO time after work sending any work emails... someone out there is spending an awful lot of time to make up for my slacking.
Yeah, I know that person. I work for them...
Maybe there's a generational gap here, but as a 20-something just entering the working world, I've found it striking how those 20-30 years older than myself have come to see email as the Infallible Silver Bullet of instant office communication. Email isn't always reliable, or instant, or even secure, yet it's increasingly treated that way.
For example, I receive one-liner emails from someone sitting at a computer in an office less than 30 feet from mine. Just walk over and ask your question, you know where I am. Well, okay, so I'm not always at the computer- in which case I'll get a followup email (or two) within 10 minutes asking why I haven't replied to the first message. We have numerous people who use email as an instant message service, shooting single sentence messages back and forth all day long. Our workstations even come with an IM client installed, and I've tried to instruct people to use it, but nobody does. They'd rather make a show out of spending at least an hour or two every day "doing email", as it's called around the office.
I'm convinced that the use of Blackberries will only make the problem worse. Email is quickly becomming the text messaging of the workplace, something it was never designed nor intended for. God help me if the boss ever gets a Blackberry, and figures out how to use it...
If you don't want to cast a vote, just show up and cast a blank ballot. I know several people who claim to do this when they don't like any of the candidates; they see it as a form of protest. I've also done the same in cases where I've gone to the poll to vote for president or governor, and was caught off guard by some city council election or similar that I simply forgot to research. Rather than blindly pick from a list of candidates I know nothing about, I simply don't cast a vote for that race.
This was almost a petty theft case, sure significant to some but not really a major crime issue.
What if it were a more serious case?
Actually, according to TFA the unit was valuable enough that this case was considered to be grand theft. IIRC, in the US theft of an item over $500 is usually considered a felony.
When my parents received new license plates last year for four vehicles, they were *almost* in sequential order. They received -663, -664, -665, and -667. Well, they *do* live in a Bible Belt state, so I don't doubt that at some point in the past some unfortunate churchgoer got offended when they received the mark of the beast on their new plates.
Having your post modded "Funny" has no effect on your Karma, while "Insightful" does. So, there are a number of moderators who give out the insightful moderation to posts that they think are exceptionally funny or witty.
Of course, maybe I'm giving the moderators too much credit. After all, why was your post modded troll? On second thought, maybe the moderators are smoking something today.;)
I'm sure there's stuff in the legalese of the contract you signed which says that that number's an upper limit and you should just be happy they give you any bandwidth at all, you filty consumer. There. Fixed it for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but the high resolution imagery currently on Google maps typically comes from areal photos, not from satellite imagery. The news here is that the images were taken from a satellite in orbit, not from a plane.
And that common ancestor was what, a donkey?
Noah :-P
IANAP (I am not a pilot), but I've been around planes all my life and have limited experience. A 300 foot climb followed by a sharp dive? That sounds more like a stall. Perhaps the aircraft had a problem with a faulty airspeed indicator and slowed down?
My understanding is that a loss of speed would cause the nose of the plane to rise (if there are any pilots around, I raise the question: how else could you account for a sudden 300 foot climb?), further causing a reduction in speed coupled with a rapid increase in lift. Then, past a critical point, the aircraft slows until drag overcomes lift, and the nose drops sharply.
modern aircraft are supposed to have multiple systems designed to warn pilots when a stall is likely to occur. I would speculate that wireless devices are more likely to interfere with such warning/prevention systems rather than the actual controls.
Okay, so I kid. But when your have to wait every morning for your bogged-down workstation to load all sorts of services and client side junk that IT installs on their XP boxes, you get tired of it very quickly. The system is so sluggish and unresponsive for 3-4 minutes after login that I can usually brew a cup of coffee before clicking on the start button actually has any effect. That's 3-4 minutes during which I could be reading Slashdot, er, I mean doing something productive.
There is absolutely no reason why a 3-year-old computer should take 6 minutes from BIOS to the point where I can actually click on a menu item in Firefox and get a response that is not delayed 5+ seconds. I eventually got so annoyed that I partitioned the drive and installed Ubuntu. Just don't tell anyone...
Brilliant idea... install them at airport security checkpoints and border crossings. So, let's say I'm stressed and aggravated because I'm late for my flight, or tired of standing in line being shoved around and treated like a criminal (or an animal). Can you say "false positive"?
I would have responded with my favorite pirate joke... but there be kids around, and it be rated ARRRRRRRRR!
It's an under-appreciated punctuation mark anyway.
Fixed. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. ;-)
Whew... I'm glad I have a motorcycle. those sensors at stoplights NEVER detect me!
Sometimes corporate policy limits what one may do with their computer... yeah, I know, I should get back to work.
Where I live, it's common for thieves to steal license plates and slap them on their car before committing a crime. It raises far less attention than a car with no plates, and even if bystanders copy down the offending plate number, such information is useless.
Combine a stolen plate with a stolen ID, and it would be very difficult to track down a one-time offender disregarding something like facial recognition (drive through the tollbooth every day at 8 AM, though, and I'm sure they'd catch on pretty quickly).
Another loophole is those temporary 30 day tags you get when you purchase a new car. In many states they are not unique, not trackable (in our state they just have a sharpied 6-digit expiration date in big numbers), easy to fake, and nobody thinks twice about them.
Between the splash screen redirects and the ads, this article is nearly unreadable. Here's the text for those who don't want to put up with the crap.
----
Drivers using the automated FasTrak toll system on roads and bridges in California's Bay Area could be vulnerable to fraud, according to a computer security firm in Oakland, CA.
Despite previous reassurances about the security of the system, Nate Lawson of Root Labs claims that the unique identity numbers used to identify the FasTrak wireless transponders carried in cars can be copied or overwritten with relative ease.
This means that fraudsters could clone transponders, says Lawson, by copying the ID of another driver onto their device. As a result, they could travel for free while others unwittingly foot the bill. "It's trivial to clone a device," Lawson says. "In fact, I have several clones with my own ID already."
Lawson says that this also raises the possibility of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one's own ID onto another driver's device before committing a crime. The toll system's logs would appear to show the perpetrator driving at another location when the crime was being committed, he says.
So far, the security flaws have only been verified in the FasTrak system, but other toll systems, like E-Z Pass and I-Pass, need to be looked at too, argues Lawson. "Every modern system requires a public security review to be sure there aren't different but related problems," he says. Indeed, in recent weeks, researchers announced flaws in another wireless identification system: the Mifare Classic chip, which is used by commuters on transport systems in many cities, including Boston and London. However, last week, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) filed a lawsuit to prevent students at MIT from presenting an analysis of Boston's subway system.
The Bay Area Metropolitan Transport Commission (MTC), which oversees the FasTrak toll system, maintains that it is secure but says it is looking into Lawson's claims. "MTC is in contact with vendors who manufacture FasTrak lane equipment and devices to identify potential risks and corrective actions," says MTC spokesman Randy Rentschler. "We are also improving system monitoring in order to detect potentially fraudulent activity."
In the past, authorities have insisted that the FasTrak system uses encryption to secure data and that no personal details are stored on the device--just two unique, randomly assigned ID numbers. One of these is used to register the device when a customer purchases it, while the other acts as a unique identifier to let radio receivers at tolls detect cars as they pass by.
But when Lawson opened up a transponder, he found that there was no security protecting these IDs. The device uses two antennas, one to detect a request signal from the toll reader and another to transmit its ID so that it can be read, he says.
By copying the IDs of the readers, it was possible to activate the transponder to transmit its ID. This trick doesn't have to be carried out on the highway, Lawson notes, but could be achieved by walking through a parking lot and discreetly interrogating transponders.
What's more, despite previous claims that the devices are read only, Lawson found that IDs are actually stored on rewritable flash memory. "FasTrak is probably not aware of this, which is why I tried to get in touch with them," he says. It is possible to send messages to the device to overwrite someone's ID, either wiping it or replacing it with another ID, says Lawson.
"Access to a tag number does not provide the ability to access any other information," says MTC's Rentschler. "We also believe that significant effort would need to be invested in cloning tags." He adds, "If any fraudulent toll activity is detected on a customer's account, the existing toll-enforcement system can be used to identify and track down the perpetrator."
Lawson says that using each stolen ID just once would make it difficult to track
I could also see the benefit of some stores keeping some light data on you (name, address, phone) so they can contact you but I think they should get rid of your credit card info after X days/weeks.
Indeed, this is the heart of the problem: When X = 52 weeks, or 2 years, or forever. I can understand why a hotel would want to keep my information on file for a short while, say a week or two to assure that I've been charged for my visit, or held responsible if I happened to break a lamp or a window, but I see absolutely NO REASON why a company has to keep my credit card details on file for an entire year after I have concluded a business transaction with them.
Less critical information such as my name, address, or phone number, sure. If I give this information up I understand that the company might want to use it sometime in the future to contact me. But what benefit is my credit card number to said company a year or two down the road? Is there some sort of insight that can be gained from analyzing credit card usage data? Does the information (if any) gained from such analysis really help them improve the way they do business? It sounds like too many companies have been caught up in the "if we can store the data, we will, even if it's useless" mindset.
Like that means anything to me. Can they compare that percentage in terms of the number of pages per Library of Congress?
Sure.
'That's like less than one hundredth of 1% of the number of pages in the library of congress.'
Why would anyone pay over a thousand dollars to play games equivalent to games they would play on a console for much less?
Because, for some people (myself included), having a high-end computer is useful for more than just gaming.
I do alot of amateur video work as a hobby in my spare time, and rendering video at a decent speed requires an impressive amount of computing power (not to mention storage). I'm also into photography, and use the computer as my primary media center and DVD player. For me, gaming was almost an afterthought, but it made sense to spend about $150 more on a fancier graphics card than to buy a dedicated console.
Exactly... you've hit on the point that I was trying to get across in my previous post/rant... it's the urgency of the message that's key. That's the problem I have with Blackberries. One of my pet peeves is to be in the middle of a face-to-face conversation with someone when a new email notification arrives on their computer. Typically, it goes like this: the new mail sound plays from their speakers, they stop the conversation in mid-sentence, turn to their computer, and open their email client. They then scroll through the message rapidly before proclaiming, "It's just a newsletter. Okay, where were we?"
Blackberies can only make things worse. I actually know several people who, when they receive a new email while driving, immediately pull the Blackberry out of their pocket and not only read it, but immediately start thumbing out a reply message!
And since I spend NO time after work sending any work emails ... someone out there is spending an awful lot of time to make up for my slacking.
Yeah, I know that person. I work for them...
Maybe there's a generational gap here, but as a 20-something just entering the working world, I've found it striking how those 20-30 years older than myself have come to see email as the Infallible Silver Bullet of instant office communication. Email isn't always reliable, or instant, or even secure, yet it's increasingly treated that way.
For example, I receive one-liner emails from someone sitting at a computer in an office less than 30 feet from mine. Just walk over and ask your question, you know where I am. Well, okay, so I'm not always at the computer- in which case I'll get a followup email (or two) within 10 minutes asking why I haven't replied to the first message. We have numerous people who use email as an instant message service, shooting single sentence messages back and forth all day long. Our workstations even come with an IM client installed, and I've tried to instruct people to use it, but nobody does. They'd rather make a show out of spending at least an hour or two every day "doing email", as it's called around the office.
I'm convinced that the use of Blackberries will only make the problem worse. Email is quickly becomming the text messaging of the workplace, something it was never designed nor intended for. God help me if the boss ever gets a Blackberry, and figures out how to use it...
Now the government has the tools it needs to protect itself. Don't you feel more protected? I feel more protected!
Fixed. ;-)
If you don't want to cast a vote, just show up and cast a blank ballot. I know several people who claim to do this when they don't like any of the candidates; they see it as a form of protest. I've also done the same in cases where I've gone to the poll to vote for president or governor, and was caught off guard by some city council election or similar that I simply forgot to research. Rather than blindly pick from a list of candidates I know nothing about, I simply don't cast a vote for that race.
This was almost a petty theft case, sure significant to some but not really a major crime issue.
What if it were a more serious case?
Actually, according to TFA the unit was valuable enough that this case was considered to be grand theft. IIRC, in the US theft of an item over $500 is usually considered a felony.
Could you boil it down to a word?
Forty-two
We must convert the dial-up heathens
Why should I change? My dialup connection works fine so long as noone picks up th# $% @#$#%)G$%$#^NO CARRIER
When my parents received new license plates last year for four vehicles, they were *almost* in sequential order. They received -663, -664, -665, and -667. Well, they *do* live in a Bible Belt state, so I don't doubt that at some point in the past some unfortunate churchgoer got offended when they received the mark of the beast on their new plates.
Having your post modded "Funny" has no effect on your Karma, while "Insightful" does. So, there are a number of moderators who give out the insightful moderation to posts that they think are exceptionally funny or witty.
;)
Of course, maybe I'm giving the moderators too much credit. After all, why was your post modded troll? On second thought, maybe the moderators are smoking something today.
Even more amazing, this is the second time in a week that I've seen a link to goatse actually get modded UP...