Not to me. If the government agents want to swear under oath that they saw the material, their testimony could be used as evidence. I don't see why their supposed "knowledge" should make any difference in the matter of whether or not the accused needs to turn over their encryption keys.
It's only a good strategy in a limited number of situations. I don't think Apple execs believe their stock is trading at a big discount at the moment. The other well understood reason for this is that the company has a pile of cash and they see no opportunities for productive investment. If they thought they could keep growing i-gadget sales going forward, why not invest in new production capacity for example? The market is becoming saturated with "gadgets" and just like we saw with PCs, phones and tablets are rapidly becoming commoditized.
Not one single bachelor works at The Firm. They encourage children because children promote stability. Also, nobody has ever left The Firm(alive that is).
Maybe "Dropcam" is just a front for some incredibly lucrative illegal business and the employees are blackmailed into staying? I sort of doubt he'd be giving interviews and drawing publicity to himself if that were the case however.
How many tech companies, (or IT departments of non-tech companies) have you ever worked at? How many of those places would not be temporarily (or permanently) crippled if they suddenly got rid of their young, single male employees?
Can we quit tossing around the bloody "T-word" every time a crime is committed? This is VANDALISM.
Not sure about Europe, but in the USA, so-called "terrorists" can be stripped of their Constitutional rights just based on a government accusation. No evidence, no charge, no trial. Government says you're a "terrorist", your rights go down the toilet and you're either imprisoned or assassinated without due process.
"what we have is a process that provably cannot be depended on to produce anything useful more often than a random selection."
If you're talking about crowd-sourcing in the general sense, I disagree. Look at the data from one of those contests where you need to guess the number of candies (or whatever) in some large container. The distribution of the guesses (crowd-sourced data) will typically center around the correct number. The lower bound is obviously '1'. Suppose the upper bound was '500'. Analysis of the crowd-sourced guesses is going to give you a much better result that picking a random number between 1 and 500.
"Removing anonymity would remove the mob mentality effect, and allow us to exploit the power of this type of technology for good purpose."
The fact that some innocent people got undeserved attention is hardly a convincing reason to do away with anonymous free speech. If you want to talk about a "lynch mob" mentality, look at what happens to people who dare question the politically correct orthodoxy in this country. Dr. James Watson, a Nobel Prize winning geneticist lost his job and position on the board of directors at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory because he made some politically incorrect comments about race and genetic differences. The guy was an EXPERT in the field of genetics but was persecuted for saying something that the witch hunters didn't want to hear. Two high school students in FL posted a YouTube video where they made "racist" comments and had to be taken out of their school because they were getting death threats. As long as people are going to be subjected to reprisal and violence for speaking unpopular opinions, we need anonymous free speech.
"the FBI did, in fact, release the relevant snippets of video and pictures from the private security cameras and other sources."
I haven't been able to find the video footage which actually shows one of the suspects dropping off the package and walking away. The FBI claims they have this and that it was the compelling piece of evidence which put the focus on these two guys.
The ONLY reason the authorities could do a "better job" is that they had access to more information. The data which set off the manhunt was from a security camera near the scene of one of the explosions.
I think it's good to have millions of eyes poring over the vast amounts of data. I also think the "crowd" found some interesting things. Absent any other data, the two guys on the cover of the New York Post deserved to be interviewed at least. Two guys, two backpacks that were similar to the shredded backpack from the bomb blast. The bulge in one of their backpacks definitely could have been caused by a cooking pot cover. In some pix, they were seen wearing the backpacks, in some others, they weren't.
Definitely to be taken with a table-spoon of salt, but given the information available, I think the crowd narrowed in on some "persons of interest".
I attended a very "liberal" liberal arts college for a while. Yes, they certainly are a bastion of tolerance and open mindedness... until you say or write something with which they disagree. Then, they want to burn you alive on the campus green for your heresy. The radical feminist dean of students would be there to light the match.
Exaggerating a bit, but the backlash for expressing unpopular opinions was so harsh that I felt pressured to guard my words to avoid it. You wouldn't believe the verbal thrashing I got for saying that "She said / he said" type sexual assault cases would naturally favor the defendant given that the burden of proof is on the prosecution. "Attitudes such as mine are what perpetuates the cycle of violence against women, etc. etc.". Most intolerant bastards I've ever encountered. Drove me away and led me to embrace libertarianism with open arms.
AFAIK, the XP software licensing isn't bound to a certain piece of hardware. Why not buy the new hardware and then re-install XP and the medical software on the new machine? wrt security, does the machine with the software really need to be connected to the internet? I'm more concerned about what happens when the next version of TurboTax won't run on XP.:-0
Gee, I thought the Patriot Act and all the other security state measures were supposed to protect us? Just imagine the carnage that would be possible if the federal government couldn't read our e-mail, snoop on our financial transactions, keep track of our phone calls and access our library records?
Weird indeed. Two guys who have been living seemingly normal lives in the USA for 10 years just decide to start bombing innocent people? Their actions after the crime make no sense to me either. Why hang around in the greater Boston area as opposed to getting out of there? Let's hope the guy in custody survives to tell his story.
Try to avoid paying your federal income taxes (tribute to the local warlord) and then physically resist when they try to kidnap you and put you in a cage. They'll whip out the heavy artillery faster than you can blink.
I think you mean "endure the chaos of a failed dictatorship". You can't expect libertarianism to suddenly blossom after decades of authoritarian rule, followed by a bloody civil war and a series of military invasions by other countries.
Who is forcing anyone to use bitcoins? And how does that compare with "Legal Tender" laws (you MUST take these pieces of paper in exchange for goods). What about laws which make it a crime to create an alternative currency (e.g. The "Liberty Dollar")?
The very idea of using violence to coerce behavior, even the behavior of your children, is morally repugnant to libertarians. You failed when you suddenly tried to use "Republicans" as a synonym for "libertarian". Yes, the only time Republicans object to government overreach is when they are not the ones in charge. Libertarians find the whole concept of ruling others through an ever-present threat of violence to be abhorrent.
The local warlord might be bad, but there is no way he/she could possibly exert control over 330 million people and occupy a territory as large as the USA. Any violence and bloodshed involved in deposing the warlord would also be trivial compared to the epic destruction and carnage that governments have inflicted on the world. I don't think a local warlord would be able to keep 2.2 million people in cages either.
Your "memory" of the South is also flawed. The North did not invade the South on some benevolent crusade to free the slaves. The war began in April 1861. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't happen until Jan. 1863. The EP did NOT apply to the slaves in Northern states either(so much for the noble government trying to free people). Lincoln also offered to rescind the order for any state that abandoned the Confederacy and re-joined the union.
No comment on the OP's assertion, but the government certainly shut down the mafia numbers games because they wanted to take over the business and rename it "The Lottery".
Before the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, there were periods of both price Inflation and DEflation. There were sharp swings, but no discernible trend one way or the other. Since the creation of the Fed, we've been on a clear and steady inflationary trend.
We've been conditioned into believing that inflation is "natural" when it is anything but. Steadily rising prices caused by central bank manipulation of the money supply is nothing more than a sophisticated mechanism by which the banking elite steal wealth from everyone else in the economy. The Fed represents the biggest wealth transfer from poor to rich in the history of the United States.
The natural state of things would be one of price deflation where the money you saved in your mattress would eventually buy MORE, not less. The erosion in the value of the purchasing power of the currency is nothing more than institutionalized THEFT.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, we live in a dangerous world where people like Michael Bloomberg want to take away our freedoms.
No "terrorist" can ever take away our freedoms. Only governments are capable of using enough force against us to accomplish that.
"Make sense?"
Not to me. If the government agents want to swear under oath that they saw the material, their testimony could be used as evidence. I don't see why their supposed "knowledge" should make any difference in the matter of whether or not the accused needs to turn over their encryption keys.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe: "...experiments at the LHC are seeking to cast light on this dominance of antimatter over matter."
It's only a good strategy in a limited number of situations. I don't think Apple execs believe their stock is trading at a big discount at the moment.
The other well understood reason for this is that the company has a pile of cash and they see no opportunities for productive investment. If they thought they could keep growing i-gadget sales going forward, why not invest in new production capacity for example?
The market is becoming saturated with "gadgets" and just like we saw with PCs, phones and tablets are rapidly becoming commoditized.
Not one single bachelor works at The Firm. They encourage children because children promote stability. Also, nobody has ever left The Firm(alive that is).
Maybe "Dropcam" is just a front for some incredibly lucrative illegal business and the employees are blackmailed into staying?
I sort of doubt he'd be giving interviews and drawing publicity to himself if that were the case however.
I think he probably meant white, heterosexual, non-disabled, single, childless males who don't have military experience.
If you're in a "diversity" bucket, I'm sure that it's all cool.
How many tech companies, (or IT departments of non-tech companies) have you ever worked at? How many of those places would not be temporarily (or permanently) crippled if they suddenly got rid of their young, single male employees?
Stick your drop-cam up your arse 'bro'.
"Dumb people think that (maximising hours) == (maximising output),"
The post clearly stated that this is the philosophy of "IT management".
Send this article to your CEO and recommend that they fire all the young, single, childless (white) males.
Can we quit tossing around the bloody "T-word" every time a crime is committed? This is VANDALISM.
Not sure about Europe, but in the USA, so-called "terrorists" can be stripped of their Constitutional rights just based on a government accusation. No evidence, no charge, no trial. Government says you're a "terrorist", your rights go down the toilet and you're either imprisoned or assassinated without due process.
terrorism n: An act of which the central government disapproves.
"what we have is a process that provably cannot be depended on to produce anything useful more often than a random selection."
If you're talking about crowd-sourcing in the general sense, I disagree. Look at the data from one of those contests where you need to guess the number of candies (or whatever) in some large container. The distribution of the guesses (crowd-sourced data) will typically center around the correct number.
The lower bound is obviously '1'. Suppose the upper bound was '500'. Analysis of the crowd-sourced guesses is going to give you a much better result that picking a random number between 1 and 500.
"Removing anonymity would remove the mob mentality effect, and allow us to exploit the power of this type of technology for good purpose."
The fact that some innocent people got undeserved attention is hardly a convincing reason to do away with anonymous free speech.
If you want to talk about a "lynch mob" mentality, look at what happens to people who dare question the politically correct orthodoxy in this country. Dr. James Watson, a Nobel Prize winning geneticist lost his job and position on the board of directors at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory because he made some politically incorrect comments about race and genetic differences. The guy was an EXPERT in the field of genetics but was persecuted for saying something that the witch hunters didn't want to hear.
Two high school students in FL posted a YouTube video where they made "racist" comments and had to be taken out of their school because they were getting death threats.
As long as people are going to be subjected to reprisal and violence for speaking unpopular opinions, we need anonymous free speech.
"the FBI did, in fact, release the relevant snippets of video and pictures from the private security cameras and other sources."
I haven't been able to find the video footage which actually shows one of the suspects dropping off the package and walking away. The FBI claims they have this and that it was the compelling piece of evidence which put the focus on these two guys.
The ONLY reason the authorities could do a "better job" is that they had access to more information. The data which set off the manhunt was from a security camera near the scene of one of the explosions.
I think it's good to have millions of eyes poring over the vast amounts of data. I also think the "crowd" found some interesting things. Absent any other data, the two guys on the cover of the New York Post deserved to be interviewed at least. Two guys, two backpacks that were similar to the shredded backpack from the bomb blast. The bulge in one of their backpacks definitely could have been caused by a cooking pot cover. In some pix, they were seen wearing the backpacks, in some others, they weren't.
Definitely to be taken with a table-spoon of salt, but given the information available, I think the crowd narrowed in on some "persons of interest".
OFFTOPIC
- being liberal (ie. having an open mind)
lol
I attended a very "liberal" liberal arts college for a while. Yes, they certainly are a bastion of tolerance and open mindedness ... until you say or write something with which they disagree. Then, they want to burn you alive on the campus green for your heresy. The radical feminist dean of students would be there to light the match.
Exaggerating a bit, but the backlash for expressing unpopular opinions was so harsh that I felt pressured to guard my words to avoid it. You wouldn't believe the verbal thrashing I got for saying that "She said / he said" type sexual assault cases would naturally favor the defendant given that the burden of proof is on the prosecution. "Attitudes such as mine are what perpetuates the cycle of violence against women, etc. etc.". Most intolerant bastards I've ever encountered. Drove me away and led me to embrace libertarianism with open arms.
AFAIK, the XP software licensing isn't bound to a certain piece of hardware. Why not buy the new hardware and then re-install XP and the medical software on the new machine? :-0
wrt security, does the machine with the software really need to be connected to the internet?
I'm more concerned about what happens when the next version of TurboTax won't run on XP.
"if devices like kinect can measure leg [movement]... why need treadmill for input?"
So you don't run forward 4 feet and crash into the screen?
Gee, I thought the Patriot Act and all the other security state measures were supposed to protect us? Just imagine the carnage that would be possible if the federal government couldn't read our e-mail, snoop on our financial transactions, keep track of our phone calls and access our library records?
Weird indeed. Two guys who have been living seemingly normal lives in the USA for 10 years just decide to start bombing innocent people? Their actions after the crime make no sense to me either. Why hang around in the greater Boston area as opposed to getting out of there?
Let's hope the guy in custody survives to tell his story.
Try to avoid paying your federal income taxes (tribute to the local warlord) and then physically resist when they try to kidnap you and put you in a cage. They'll whip out the heavy artillery faster than you can blink.
I think you mean "endure the chaos of a failed dictatorship". You can't expect libertarianism to suddenly blossom after decades of authoritarian rule, followed by a bloody civil war and a series of military invasions by other countries.
Who is forcing anyone to use bitcoins? And how does that compare with "Legal Tender" laws (you MUST take these pieces of paper in exchange for goods). What about laws which make it a crime to create an alternative currency (e.g. The "Liberty Dollar")?
The very idea of using violence to coerce behavior, even the behavior of your children, is morally repugnant to libertarians. You failed when you suddenly tried to use "Republicans" as a synonym for "libertarian". Yes, the only time Republicans object to government overreach is when they are not the ones in charge. Libertarians find the whole concept of ruling others through an ever-present threat of violence to be abhorrent.
The local warlord might be bad, but there is no way he/she could possibly exert control over 330 million people and occupy a territory as large as the USA. Any violence and bloodshed involved in deposing the warlord would also be trivial compared to the epic destruction and carnage that governments have inflicted on the world. I don't think a local warlord would be able to keep 2.2 million people in cages either.
Your "memory" of the South is also flawed. The North did not invade the South on some benevolent crusade to free the slaves. The war began in April 1861. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't happen until Jan. 1863. The EP did NOT apply to the slaves in Northern states either(so much for the noble government trying to free people). Lincoln also offered to rescind the order for any state that abandoned the Confederacy and re-joined the union.
No comment on the OP's assertion, but the government certainly shut down the mafia numbers games because they wanted to take over the business and rename it "The Lottery".
Before the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, there were periods of both price Inflation and DEflation. There were sharp swings, but no discernible trend one way or the other. Since the creation of the Fed, we've been on a clear and steady inflationary trend.
We've been conditioned into believing that inflation is "natural" when it is anything but. Steadily rising prices caused by central bank manipulation of the money supply is nothing more than a sophisticated mechanism by which the banking elite steal wealth from everyone else in the economy. The Fed represents the biggest wealth transfer from poor to rich in the history of the United States.
The natural state of things would be one of price deflation where the money you saved in your mattress would eventually buy MORE, not less. The erosion in the value of the purchasing power of the currency is nothing more than institutionalized THEFT.