That's exactly what I did. No way I'm going to just bend over and take it. I really wish I had tried to fight it though. I just couldn't part with 100$ like that, though. I really doubted I could win it.
There is a difference between being simply caught out in public and a party having the ability to systematically track and scan for your presence.
If I decide go out to a strip club and have myself a good ole yee-haw time without telling my wife and I happen to get seen by one of her friends exiting the club, well that's too bad. It's the luck of the draw that I got myself caught. However, having access to a database that can reveal every recorded instance of me in that area during a given period of time is a different matter altogether. In the wrong hands, or directed at the wrong person, it can do serious damage that otherwise might have remained private.
Take for instance the same scenario described above, but instead of happening to me, it happens to an elected official. Instead of an angry wife, the information is leaked to a story-hungry news reporter. Or worse yet, SOLD to a rival running to be elected to the same office. Doesn't have to be a topless bar, but even though going to one isn't illegal, it sure can damage a public person's reputation. And while those examples might seem arbitrary and made-up, they are just as arbitrary and made-up as the claims that surveillance actually prevents certain crimes from being committed.
I live in Texas, too, and I can personally say that know a number of people who are NOT here illegally that don't have insurance and quite a few that are here illegally and DO have it. You happen to know of five instances. Well, I'm sure someone knows 6 instances that prove otherwise. Or 7, or 8. What does that matter? Snapping a picture of everyone's plates is NOT the way to fix a broken insurance system.
New father here, too. And I would hate to think that when he eventually starts driving that he could be possibly be added to a database for doing nothing wrong at all. I don't want him to get abducted, either, but again, what does that have to do with this camera system? The cameras won't prevent abductions from occurring, nor would they magically yield the abductor's plates or insure that he wasn't using alternate means of transportation.
I too have nothing to hide, but I've a hell of a lot that I don't want people to know about me, I'm not going to hide any of it and I'll be damned if I let someone try to force me to give up information that I don't need or want to make known.
... on camera going through an intersection on a red that I either did not see or acknowledge and I got sent a "ticket" in the mail. It's only a "ticket" because it actually says on the back of the ticket that no driving record marks or arrest warrants would result from the non-payment of the citation. And it's from a third party company, NOT the local or state government. You can be sure I was pissed when I discovered that some company I never heard of was handling this instead of law enforcement. The only real official figment it bore was the name of the policeman who is handling the citation. That must be one hell of an easy job.
To go to court and and fight it would cost 100$, but the citation itself is only 75$. I thought about taking it to court and fighting it on the grounds that the burden of proof rests upon the company who maintains the camera and data to PROVE that the data had not been altered. I'd basically argue that without that proof, once my car had been photographed just once there would be little that could be done to stop the company from photoshopping my car into an intersection during a red light whenever they wanted to and claiming that it was me who ran the red light. I'm sure there's some violation of rights existing somewhere in the laws that govern this, I just don't have 175$ or the desire to go to court and try to find it. Besides it doesn't matter because the ONLY repercussion that will result in not paying the "ticket" is that the price goes up by 25$ once and then it goes against my credit rating. How the hell can they do that to begin with? That's yet another WTF.
I'd really like to see this sort of thing busted wide open as unconstitutional until there's some checks to make sure the ones handling the data is responsible.
While you're an ass... I've noticed in my very own forays into perfect grammar that hyphens are quite contagious. I would demonstrate, but the effect only occurs if attempted subconsciously.
I used to be just like your boy there, until yesterday when I took my fist tech call on Vista and was treated to 15 mins of "initializing your desktop" right after setting up the software. This was on a brand new, right out of the box system that should have been as simple as plug it up, turn it on, change the date/time, make a password and start browsing. But no, it took 15 mins to "setup" even though everything was already installed and the desktop was drudgery to navigate with more than 3 windows open. Absolutely unacceptable that there's NOTHING the average user can do to change that and I really feel for the people who are stuck with such a bad product product because there's nothing else to really compete with it and they don't have the knowledge or means to simply install XP or Linux as an alternative.
And she sent me a reply, telling me that she's already voted in favor of passing the bill:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 provides the basic framework for the use of electronic surveillance in the context of foreign intelligence gathering. Over time, FISA has been amended to expand intelligence gathering to physical searches and access to certain business records. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the USA PATRIOT Act made significant changes to some FISA provisions in order to aid in the capture of suspected terrorists.
On August 5, 2007, the President signed the Protect America Act of 2007 into law. The Protect America Act updated FISA to close a critical gap relating to the surveillance of suspected terrorists and to address limitations on surveillance created by a 2007 FISA Court. The Protect America Act was a temporary measure that expired on February 16, 2008 after one 15-day extension. After months of careful analysis, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported S. 2248, a comprehensive bill reforming FISA and extending critical collection authorities for a period of six years. The bill includes important safeguards to protect privacy and civil liberties, including procedures to prevent the dissemination of information about U.S. citizens that has been collected incidentally during certain surveillance activities.
S. 2248 contains a number of other provisions, including an extension of liability protection to electronic service providers that may have cooperated with the federal government after 9/11. Many of these firms face class action lawsuits in which the government may assert its privilege in order to protect sources and methods of intelligence collection. This privilege limits the ability of the companies to provide evidence to defend their alleged conduct. I recognize that some oppose the liability protection, but I joined 67 of my Senate colleagues in supporting the Senate Intelligence Committee bill because I believe that it is untenable to allow the lawsuits to proceed at the same time that we limit the ability of the defendants to produce evidence critical to their cases. The potential liability awards that might result could be catastrophic, negatively affecting the broader economy and signaling to these companies, and to other private entities that we may need to rely upon in the War on Terror, that their cooperation carries major risks. On a bi-partisan basis, the Senate passed S. 2248 with the liability protection provisions. The Senate now awaits action by the House.
Please know that I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to safeguard the security of our nation while upholding our personal privacy rights and civil liberties.
I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will not hesitate to keep in touch on any issue of concern to you.
Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator
284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5922 (tel)
202-224-0776 (fax) http://hutchison.senate.gov/
She basically thinks that class action lawsuits against companies being sued for spying will tank the economy and endanger government relations with companies that assist in the "War on Terror" (notice how that's capitalized, as if it's a mere fabrication). I call bollocks and bullshit on that one.
... and my sources being every woman I know, women like dangerous men because they fuck good. Seriously. 9/10 of the chicks I asked this to told me that. My wife even likes it when I do dangerous things (that don't directly involve her or our son) and when I ask her why she says "I don't know, I just like to see you work hard." That doesn't make much sense, but she's always horny afterwards.
but I read over a good portion of the.PDF and aren't the things it endorses tantamount to terrorism, that evil scourge the nation is supposed to be so against? Just asking, but isn't it basically saying that it's okay for them to do it, but others cannot? And, if they can keep it a secret they'll support terrorism as long as it's against an enemy?
I write in response to bill S. 1625, currently making it's way through the senate.
This bill should not be passed in the state that it is in because it includes exemptions for "telecommunications carriers, cable operators, computer hardware and software providers, financial institutions or providers of information service or interactive computer services..." that could be decremental to consumers. These exemptions grant immunity to such companies and groups to impose on personal privacy for the following reasons as stated under exemption #10 of the bill:"(10) detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of software fraudulent or other illegal activities."
This issue falls under software piracy and not software privacy, which the bill purports to address, namely spyware. Giving companies more power to detect pirated software is not pertinent in protecting against spyware. In fact, it is counter-intuitive to such well-intended efforts, as it will give said companies a considerable measure of control over their customer's computers, an effect that the bill was designed to prevent.
I believe this bill should be dumped on the merits that has been laced, tainted with unrelated details - the desires of lobbyists in the telecommunications and computer software and hardware business - that weigh it down and bend it away from the intended goal of protecting consumers from the dangers of spyware and rogue applications on the internet. Rather, it is being twisted into a government-sanctioned tool for the appeasement of corporate dictators in yet another attempt to hide away their intellectual properties at the consumer's expense. At the tax-payers expense. And at the expense of the liberties of the American people. This is what I protest about proposed bill S. 1625.
Please dump this bill in favor of ratifications that do not seek to satisfy the needs of corporate lobbyists, but rather accomplish the original intent of protecting consumers on the internet.
No, that means that there were patches available but they were never applied, or the attacker might have used social engineering or some other means to trick the person into installing malware.
Word. Other than spam, ~ 90% of the infections I see are caused by people surfing for porn or pirated software.But of course, no one ever wants to come out and say that.
Can you really be that dumb? If you own your car, I can see why you wouldn't want to go out and get another car payment simply to save money on gas. But, for someone who is still stuck making payments on a gas-guzzler it would be in their best interest to get rid of it, and similar or lower payments on a car that also saves them on gasoline. And of course, there are those of us who actually care about the environment and our consumption of fuel and what not. Benefits do not always have to be measured in dollars.
Man that post was awesome. It encompassed everything I was thinking about. I remember wanting to play Vanguard until I discovered that the Diplomacy system was not at all what they said it would be. I should have known better, but Brad McQuaid has that sort of snake-oil salesman thing down to an art in regards to MMOs. Thank god he probably won't be coming to my neighborhood trying to sell me anything. I'd probably buy him out.
"We know how much damage each class can do and take, plus all the utility each class can provide. So, instead of balancing each ability, we just need to modify the overall damage output and absorption of each career."
Is combat (damage) all there is to the game? This is what has made me never want to touch another one of these games again: because there's often no rewarding non-combat activities other than tradeskills. And most games haven't offered a good solution to distributing tradeskill items other than yep, you guessed it. Combat! Seriously, combat is really good, but having some classes that specialize in skills other than combat would not hurt. And this is from a former rogue player, the class that got EQified into being THE melee DPS class. Nothing wrong with combat, but couldn't games get a bit less one dimensional for a change?
Slashdot Mirror
That's exactly what I did. No way I'm going to just bend over and take it. I really wish I had tried to fight it though. I just couldn't part with 100$ like that, though. I really doubted I could win it.
If I had one of those kind of cloud computers, I could say "I made it rain" and still remain a geek.
There is a difference between being simply caught out in public and a party having the ability to systematically track and scan for your presence.
If I decide go out to a strip club and have myself a good ole yee-haw time without telling my wife and I happen to get seen by one of her friends exiting the club, well that's too bad. It's the luck of the draw that I got myself caught. However, having access to a database that can reveal every recorded instance of me in that area during a given period of time is a different matter altogether. In the wrong hands, or directed at the wrong person, it can do serious damage that otherwise might have remained private.
Take for instance the same scenario described above, but instead of happening to me, it happens to an elected official. Instead of an angry wife, the information is leaked to a story-hungry news reporter. Or worse yet, SOLD to a rival running to be elected to the same office. Doesn't have to be a topless bar, but even though going to one isn't illegal, it sure can damage a public person's reputation. And while those examples might seem arbitrary and made-up, they are just as arbitrary and made-up as the claims that surveillance actually prevents certain crimes from being committed.
I live in Texas, too, and I can personally say that know a number of people who are NOT here illegally that don't have insurance and quite a few that are here illegally and DO have it. You happen to know of five instances. Well, I'm sure someone knows 6 instances that prove otherwise. Or 7, or 8. What does that matter? Snapping a picture of everyone's plates is NOT the way to fix a broken insurance system.
New father here, too. And I would hate to think that when he eventually starts driving that he could be possibly be added to a database for doing nothing wrong at all. I don't want him to get abducted, either, but again, what does that have to do with this camera system? The cameras won't prevent abductions from occurring, nor would they magically yield the abductor's plates or insure that he wasn't using alternate means of transportation.
I too have nothing to hide, but I've a hell of a lot that I don't want people to know about me, I'm not going to hide any of it and I'll be damned if I let someone try to force me to give up information that I don't need or want to make known.
... on camera going through an intersection on a red that I either did not see or acknowledge and I got sent a "ticket" in the mail. It's only a "ticket" because it actually says on the back of the ticket that no driving record marks or arrest warrants would result from the non-payment of the citation. And it's from a third party company, NOT the local or state government. You can be sure I was pissed when I discovered that some company I never heard of was handling this instead of law enforcement. The only real official figment it bore was the name of the policeman who is handling the citation. That must be one hell of an easy job.
To go to court and and fight it would cost 100$, but the citation itself is only 75$. I thought about taking it to court and fighting it on the grounds that the burden of proof rests upon the company who maintains the camera and data to PROVE that the data had not been altered. I'd basically argue that without that proof, once my car had been photographed just once there would be little that could be done to stop the company from photoshopping my car into an intersection during a red light whenever they wanted to and claiming that it was me who ran the red light. I'm sure there's some violation of rights existing somewhere in the laws that govern this, I just don't have 175$ or the desire to go to court and try to find it. Besides it doesn't matter because the ONLY repercussion that will result in not paying the "ticket" is that the price goes up by 25$ once and then it goes against my credit rating. How the hell can they do that to begin with? That's yet another WTF.
I'd really like to see this sort of thing busted wide open as unconstitutional until there's some checks to make sure the ones handling the data is responsible.
While you're an ass... I've noticed in my very own forays into perfect grammar that hyphens are quite contagious. I would demonstrate, but the effect only occurs if attempted subconsciously.
It's pretty interesting learning about the problems encountered while analyzing alien soil, but I'm not even going to touch that vibrator comment.
I used to be just like your boy there, until yesterday when I took my fist tech call on Vista and was treated to 15 mins of "initializing your desktop" right after setting up the software. This was on a brand new, right out of the box system that should have been as simple as plug it up, turn it on, change the date/time, make a password and start browsing. But no, it took 15 mins to "setup" even though everything was already installed and the desktop was drudgery to navigate with more than 3 windows open. Absolutely unacceptable that there's NOTHING the average user can do to change that and I really feel for the people who are stuck with such a bad product product because there's nothing else to really compete with it and they don't have the knowledge or means to simply install XP or Linux as an alternative.
I need more RRRAM in my PPPowerBook!
Gibble gobble goop.
She basically thinks that class action lawsuits against companies being sued for spying will tank the economy and endanger government relations with companies that assist in the "War on Terror" (notice how that's capitalized, as if it's a mere fabrication). I call bollocks and bullshit on that one.
... and my sources being every woman I know, women like dangerous men because they fuck good. Seriously. 9/10 of the chicks I asked this to told me that. My wife even likes it when I do dangerous things (that don't directly involve her or our son) and when I ask her why she says "I don't know, I just like to see you work hard." That doesn't make much sense, but she's always horny afterwards.
but I read over a good portion of the .PDF and aren't the things it endorses tantamount to terrorism, that evil scourge the nation is supposed to be so against? Just asking, but isn't it basically saying that it's okay for them to do it, but others cannot? And, if they can keep it a secret they'll support terrorism as long as it's against an enemy?
I hope their servers can take the load. Putting a story like this up on slashdot at this time of the day is just asking to smoke some silicon.
I write in response to bill S. 1625, currently making it's way through the senate.
This bill should not be passed in the state that it is in because it includes exemptions for "telecommunications carriers, cable operators, computer hardware and software providers, financial institutions or providers of information service or interactive computer services..." that could be decremental to consumers. These exemptions grant immunity to such companies and groups to impose on personal privacy for the following reasons as stated under exemption #10 of the bill:"(10) detection or prevention of the unauthorized use of software fraudulent or other illegal activities."
This issue falls under software piracy and not software privacy, which the bill purports to address, namely spyware. Giving companies more power to detect pirated software is not pertinent in protecting against spyware. In fact, it is counter-intuitive to such well-intended efforts, as it will give said companies a considerable measure of control over their customer's computers, an effect that the bill was designed to prevent.
I believe this bill should be dumped on the merits that has been laced, tainted with unrelated details - the desires of lobbyists in the telecommunications and computer software and hardware business - that weigh it down and bend it away from the intended goal of protecting consumers from the dangers of spyware and rogue applications on the internet. Rather, it is being twisted into a government-sanctioned tool for the appeasement of corporate dictators in yet another attempt to hide away their intellectual properties at the consumer's expense. At the tax-payers expense. And at the expense of the liberties of the American people. This is what I protest about proposed bill S. 1625.
Please dump this bill in favor of ratifications that do not seek to satisfy the needs of corporate lobbyists, but rather accomplish the original intent of protecting consumers on the internet.
No, that means that there were patches available but they were never applied, or the attacker might have used social engineering or some other means to trick the person into installing malware.
What the hell do you need a missile for when you've got a passenger jet?
Word. Other than spam, ~ 90% of the infections I see are caused by people surfing for porn or pirated software.But of course, no one ever wants to come out and say that.
Can you really be that dumb? If you own your car, I can see why you wouldn't want to go out and get another car payment simply to save money on gas. But, for someone who is still stuck making payments on a gas-guzzler it would be in their best interest to get rid of it, and similar or lower payments on a car that also saves them on gasoline. And of course, there are those of us who actually care about the environment and our consumption of fuel and what not. Benefits do not always have to be measured in dollars.
I had my rogue's talent build for WoW printed out so I could easily do it again on the fly. But yeah, they still got it all wrong.
Man that post was awesome. It encompassed everything I was thinking about. I remember wanting to play Vanguard until I discovered that the Diplomacy system was not at all what they said it would be. I should have known better, but Brad McQuaid has that sort of snake-oil salesman thing down to an art in regards to MMOs. Thank god he probably won't be coming to my neighborhood trying to sell me anything. I'd probably buy him out.
... on yer new loot. Getting new over powered stuff is fun in games or in real life.
That's Japan, you insensitive clod.
Quiche?