If this wholesale data mining works, then the government will tout this success as justification for its acts. If it doesn't work, the government will complain that we're not letting them do enough to ensure our safety, and use the failure to justify even more outrageous violations of our privacy.
Whether it works or not, however, is beside the point. The point is: is it legal? Enough people have maintained that it is not to warrant a serious investigation into the matter.
It took you eight days to come up with that. How sad.
What is unbelievably idiotic is that you are ignoring the fact that I did comment on the north tower. At least try to pay attention, conspiracy nut:
I'm not ignoring the fact that you 'commented' at all. See here for my response (since you seem incapable of mastering the complex 'scroll up' maneuver). However, when I pointed out that the crash of Flight 11 on 9/11 only delivered 70% of the energy the tower was designed to withstand (see here for the math), and still collapsed into a tidy pile of rubble, your response was 'The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring.'. This statement is what is 'unbelieveably idiotic', and demonstrates your intellectual dishonesty far better than I ever could have.
You are ignoring the fact that the top of the building crashed down on the floors below, as proven by the fact that you ignored my comment about the north tower.
And you are ignoring the fact that you have not adequately explained why this collapse started. Ignoring for just a moment that this 'progressive collapse theory' has three glaring problems:
Such a collapse could not have progressed straight down. Any deviation from absolute center would have caused one side to collapse faster than the other, eventually shunting the debris off to one side.
Such a collapse does not account for all the steel members being broken into sections roughly 30 feet in length (including the core).
Such a collapse could not have occured at the acceleration observed (nearly the acceleration observed in a body falling freely through the air). The resistance of the floors would have slowed down the collapse, particularly in the initial moments, but such a slowdown was not observed. (Don't take my word for it, though...watch the video.)
...the fact remains that you have consistently failed to explain what precipitated the collapse. Certainly, it was not from the initial impact, since both towers stood long after the impact events. Certainly, it was not from the briefly burning jet fuel fires, or the more conventional office fires that followed, weakening ASTM E119 certified steel to the point of collapse, since this is impossible. Tell me, hkmwbz...what's left?
Ignoring the inconvenient problems of the 'progressive collapse' theory for just a moment, saying the collapse happened because the top floors fell down on the rest of the structure is akin to saying that a gun went off because the firing pin struck the shell. It's a frighteningly stupid argument, and I hope you'll have the courtesy of withdrawing it before it darkens this thread any further.
No you have not.
Now what have I told you about gainsaying, hkmwbz?
You have ignored facts and twisted other facts
OK, cite the facts you're accusing me of twisting and/or ignoring, and I'll be happy to address your accusations, despite the obvious fact that it's you that's done the lion's share of 'ignoring' with your childish gainsaying.
Instead of making a fool of yourself, go read the Wikipedia article on your conspiracy theories.
Wow....you never fail to amuse, do you, hkmwbz? First the North Tower is a 'red herring', and now I'm being directed to check my facts on Wikipedia. Perhaps if you followed your own advice, you would have seen that the neutrality of the Wikipedia article is currently in dispute.
They are all adequately explained.
Then it shouldn't be terribly difficult for you to use these 'explanations' to counter my arg
According to Estberg, Microsoft's employees provide an excellent test-bed for the company's products and by providing honest feedback, they also have an opportunity to influence future products.
You might want to actually read the article. From TFA:
According to Estberg, Microsoft's employees provide an excellent test-bed for the company's products and by providing honest feedback, they also have an opportunity to influence future products.
Those are not my words...they're Mark Estberg's (Microsoft's director of internal security).
Test beds would be created in isolation, with thousands of permutations based on access levels, OS versions, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Again, you might want to share your insights with Mark Estberg. You'll get no argument from me.
However, if they were in fact running test beds rigorously as you describe, one would expect there to be reletively few issues with access levels...but the vast majority of this discussion would seem to contradict that assertion...
The fact that you were rated a "5" shows that the slashdot demographic represents the population of IT morons, for actually thinking your incoherant [sic] post was somehow "interesting".
Oh yes...I forgot...we're all morons (except you, that is). Remind us again why you spend time here.
Most Linus apps that require root privileges, but that I've attempted to run as a less priviliged user, pop up a dialog box requesting a root password (two quick examples that come to mind are ethereal and Yast). In contrast, I've never seen a Windows program ask me to authenticate myself as an admin when I attempt to run it (although I have seen this during installs, so I know it's possible).
I think you're missing the point. I'm not disputing that these programs could be made to run with less than admin access by manipulating registry entries and file & folder perms. My contention is that this work should have been done (but was not done) by the developers who wrote the code in the first place. Without performing these gymnastics, the programs will not run properly under less than admin privileges
What version are you running? Perhaps they've fixed that problem since I encountered it about 4 years ago.
Back then, I was helping to put systems in the library at Chrysler. These systems would be accessed by regular rank-and-file Chrysler employees, and letting them have admin rights simply wasn't an option.
When it came time to test the PowerDVD install (essential for allowing users to view the library DVDs), we found that it just didn't work. After screwing around with directory perms for a few hours, I gave up and called PowerDVD's tech support, and was told quite plainly that admin rights were required...no workaround available and no explanation given.
To sum up, admin-level access had to be allowed for the systems, and we implemented DeepFreeze to prevent the systems from getting irretrivably FUBAR'd (DeepFreeze was cheaper than an alternate solution to PowerDVD, which we got free with the DVD drives).
Currently, the majority of Microsoft's employees enjoy full admin rights on their desktop PCs, which is an unusual practice in the enterprise space as it makes possible for users to install unauthorised software and introduce unwanted pests -- such as spyware.
No wonder:
There's so many poorly designed apps out there that demand admin rights to run, even though they don't actually need that level of access,
- and -
Windows itself handles rights failures so poorly (erroring out or worse, instead of just providing a prompt for the user to enter admin credentials).
Mabye if M$ developers were forced to run as non-privileged users once in a while, they'd realize that there's a lot of problems with trying to get through the day on a non-admin account. With any luck, this will spur them to design a better way of handling applications that fail due to insufficient privileges, as well as get tough on application developers who sloppily code their apps to demand admin rights.
Again from TFA:
According to Estberg, Microsoft's employees provide an excellent test-bed for the company's products and by providing honest feedback, they also have an opportunity to influence future products.
I'd hardly call an environment where users have full admin rights to their systems an adequate test-bed.
Once more from TFA:
"We are not smarter than any other enterprise in terms of knowing how to address security. We are in the same boat as everyone else," he [Estberg] added.
Saying that Microsoft is 'not smarter than any other enterprise in terms of knowing how to address security', while technically true, is deeply misleading. Any company that purports to "eat its own dog food", but performs their testing with full admin rights to the box clearly has a dangerous lack of understanding of security...a lack that we all pay the price for every day.
The correct time to have pointed that out would have been in direct response to my objection.
I directly responded to your objection with a real-life case that many consider to be a 'worst-case' scenario. At the time, I was unaware that your original post was made because you didn't recognize the hyperbole I was going for in my original post.
Before the bold, italics, comments about heads and sand, unnecessary wiki linking, and condescension.
I'm sorry that bold and italics disturb you so. Pity you couldn't see past them to the message. As for my comment about 'heads and sand', I feel it's justified, since you've chosen to take issue with my use of hyperbole to make a point, rather than the point itself. As for the 'unnecessary wiki linking', again, at the time, I thought it was necessary, as I believed that your objection was based on ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt at trolling.
Apparently you are unaware of the disturbing resemblence of your scenario to those espoused by folks who seriously include democrats and environmentalists in the set of endangered ideologies.
Indeed, I am unaware. Perhaps you would be so good as to furnish some links.
So since you now claim hyperbole in the inclusion of those two, are you still serious about the inclusion of unruly citizens and political dissidents?
Absolutely. At least you got that much.
Or was that also guarded by the invisible sarcasm tag?
Or mabye you didn't. Pity. (By the way, was that statement guarded by the 'invisible sarcasm tag'?)
I would just like to add that it is this subthread which caused me just now to decide never to pay attention to mod insightful comments.
We can only hope.
(By the way, Gulogulo, you can come out from under the AC blankie now, it's painfully obvious that it's you. It's a shame you lack the courage to confront me openly.)
As I explained earlier, my inclusion of Democrats, along with environmentalists, was the use of hyperbole to make a point.
Apparently, I'm going to have to slow-pitch these in the future...perhaps if I included members of PETA, Linux enthusiasts, and musicians in my list, it would have been clearer.
Maybe, maybe not... but then, there are times when time is of the essence, and even the time taken to decrypt something the hard way in a timely manner is of utmost importance if there are potential lives at stake.
I'm sorry, but that argument just doesn't hold water. Your statement is analagous to saying that clothing must be outlawed, since clothing can conceiveably be used to conceal weapons. Frisking certain suspect individuals simply isn't good enough, since locating the weapons in a timely manner is of utmost importance (if there are potential lives at stake).
To continue the analogy, if the suspicion is targeted, frisking works just fine, and works without violating the privacy of innocent citizens. If the suspicion is not targeted, however, frisking everyone is a logistical impossibility, so the outlawing of clothing is the only option.
(And yes, I know my analogy is somewhat flawed, since x-rays can locate some weapons without the need for disrobing, but my point is still valid).
The mere possibility of the interception and decryption of a suspect communication taking too long to save lives is not enough to justify the wholesale violation of the privacy of the citizenry (at least, it shouldn't be in America...).
I was using hyperbole to make a point. Pity you failed to realize that (I had thought the inclusion of 'environmentalists' and 'Democrats' would have made it obvious).
As I said in my previous post, there are other ways of getting the content of a conversation. Since the content must be decrypted at either end, listening devices positioned at either endpoint are easily capable of intercepting the communication, encrypted or not.
As I said, this is arduous...much harder than just listening to a line, but eavsedropping on American conversations shouldn't be easy. If the FBI (or whoever) is serious enough about capturing the content of a particular communication to obtain a court order, it's not asking that much more that they work around any encryption present.
The difference here is that while agencies could continue to listen to targeted communications by these methods, the logistics of applying them to blanket surveillance are completely unworkable, offering us some measure of protection from a wholesale violation of our privacy by the government. This is precisely why the government is against encryption...not because it would make individual cases harder, but because it would make blanket surveillance impossible.
President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, insisted today that a newly disclosed government effort to compile data on millions of telephone calls in search of terrorist-linked calling patterns was a legal and "narrowly designed program" that did not involve listening to individual calls.
So why exactly is the government getting their knickers in a twist over Zfone? After all, the program is just intended to compile a database of call information, not actually listen to the content of the conversations. Doing that, as the administration has repeatedly told us, would require a court order.
So if you have a person you suspect from the numbers he's connected with, and you do obtain that court order, and it turns out he's using Zfone, there are other ways of getting the content of that conversation (hint: it has to be unencrypted at some point, so the 'terrorists' can understand each other). Arduous, sure, but since this will be done on only a select few, it's not that much of a hardship.
No, the reason the government doesn't like Zfone is because they want perform blanket surveillance on all American citizens; to listen to all our calls, all the time. By utilizing speech-recognition software and an ever growing list of suspect words and phrases, they will be able to keep tabs on the unruly U.S. population, weeding out terrorists, political dissidents, environmentalists, Democrats, and other 'undesirables'.
They should be ditching it on at least the $499 'tard box' version, since it will not be able to play the movies in 1080p High-Def when ICP starts being implemented on Blu-Ray disks.
But of course, this isn't about marketing a useful product...this is about pushing a standard.
Tying to sell a console without games is like trying to sell a gun without ammunition. Reeves' blithe assertion that their 'brand equity' will induce gamers to shell out 600 clams for their console, despite the dearth of available games, is pure fantasy. There are other consoles out there, that are far cheaper, and have games now. I personally can't imagine how Sony's going to move any of these consoles before the games become available.
That said, perhaps Sony would have a better chance of moving said consoles if it didn't take its customer base for granted in such a shockingly flippant way. The $600 price tag is bad enough, but Reeves' interview with Computer and Video Games probably cost Sony a lot of business from spite alone.
Also, from the IGN article:
In word, Sony downplayed the disparity between the $499 and $599 PS3 versions, citing the primary difference between the consoles at the time of the announcement as the difference in built-in hard drive space, namely 20 GB for the low-end and 60 GB for the high-end. Within minutes, however, journalists homed in on a variety of factors that placed the lower-end PS3 into contention for the dreaded "tard-box" classification of crippled-console.
Sony, if you've got so much frelling 'brand equity' that you can try to sell us a console for $600 without any games, why do you feel compelled to market a separate, 'tard-box'?
People love shinies, Flash gives them those shinies, Linux's Flash plugin is bollocks.
That's funny...Flash is one of the few things on Linux that hasn't given me grief.
That and mplayer and xine both having terrible, eye splitting guis make it a nono.
You might want to take a look at some of the flashier frontends out there, like Kaffeine and amaroK. Both of these were available in my OpenSuSE installation, and they look great and work great.
Lol, yeah you're parents should totally use Linux.
And why not? They couldn't understand it any less than they understand XP...and since they don't understand how to defend themselves from viruses and malware either Linux makes more sense for them.
The only reason they aren't on Linux right now is because they're still connecting via dialup (They live in northern lower Michigan), and to date, I've been unsuccessful in getting their dialup to function reliably under Linux. If I can resolve that issue, or if they make the move to DSL (recently made available), they will run Linux, and I will sleep better at night.
I'll go elsewhere for firewall or malware protection.
No need...the above link has that covered, too.
Seriously, though, what exactly do your parents use the XP machine for? Is there a particular reason an alternate, less susceptible OS wouldn't suffice?
As I've told you before, your vapid gainsaying of my arguments is unacceptable as a debate tactic. Again, provide a rational rebuttal, or be honest enough to admit you are wrong.
The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring.
This is perhaps the funniest/most pathetic thing I have ever read here on Slashdot. To claim that the collapse of one of the WTC towers is 'irrelevant' to the discussion of the events of 9/11 unbelievably idiotic, and graphically illustrates your inability to continue this debate.
This exact situation has never happened before to a building exactly like this one.
As I've told you before, the fact that this identical situation hadn't previously happened does not mean we cannot extrapolate meaningful conclusions from our knowledge of the structures involved and similar events that have happened. If you disagree with this, that means you cannot draw any conclusions about the events of 9/11, including the laughable "official version of events" you cling to with such desperation.
Sorry to disappoint you, but it is your insane conspiracy theory which is demonstrably false.
So go ahead and demonstrate. I've referenced a lot of information in this thread to show the fallaciousness of your "conspiracy theory" (after all, that's all the 'official version of events' really is...just a ridiculous conspiracy theory that fails to agree with even the most elementary of observed events). The least you could do is respond in kind, but, you don't have any facts, do you? That's why your primary debate tactic is gainsaying.
Your "facts" are nothing but baseless claims.
Fine. Refute them. Reference some facts of your own. Do something other than mindlessly yammer "yes it could" and "yes it does".
Also, why are you assuming that I'm an American?
Only an American could be this willfully ignorant.
In any case, I doubt that anyone else is reading this, so I've done what I wanted to do: Make sure that gullible fools aren't sucked in by your lies.
Yes, most probably stopped reading after this post, since it was then that it was apparent that this debate was over. Unfortunate, because then they missed your claim that "The north tower is irrelevant", and it is "nothing but a red herring", and so missed the chance to see the true depths of your hypocrisy and ignorance.
Interviewed by Eurogamer, SCE UK Managing Director Rat Maguire said: "I don't think it's an expensive machine - I think actually, it's probably a cheap machine.
Now the question is: was this merely an innocent mistake, or actually a subtle commentary by Tony Smith, who is probably pissed that he has to shell out £425 for a PS3?
Mr Wolf, Republican chairman of the committee that oversees the department's funds, told reporters that China's spying efforts were "frightening".
It was "no secret that the US is a principal target of Chinese intelligence services", he said, adding: "No American government agency should want to purchase from them".
This is just plain stupid. Apparently, Representative Wolf's former crusades against meth and medical marijuana no longer have the punch needed, especially in an election year, so he stirs up some ridiculous FUD about Lenovo laptops.
Never mind that the State Department would probably be wiping the default software load on these laptops in favor of its own custom software load (frankly, if they don't, they're idiots). Never mind that the State Department itself (as well as any other networks these systems will be connecting to) should be adequately protected by firewalls to prevent any unauthorized phoning-home by these systems (again, idiots if they don't). Never mind that someone at least halfway competent should be able to analyze packets exiting these systems to determine conclusively, one way or another, if they are trying to compromise security (again...well, you get the idea).
Trouble is, none of these measures will provide Rep. Wolf with the political ammo required in a year divisible by 2. By denouncing the Lenovo laptops as a 'security risk', he insures that his constituents (at least the less-technically minded of them) perceive him as 'fighting for America'.
Slashdot Mirror
If this wholesale data mining works, then the government will tout this success as justification for its acts. If it doesn't work, the government will complain that we're not letting them do enough to ensure our safety, and use the failure to justify even more outrageous violations of our privacy.
Whether it works or not, however, is beside the point. The point is: is it legal? Enough people have maintained that it is not to warrant a serious investigation into the matter.
You are a moron.
It took you eight days to come up with that. How sad.
What is unbelievably idiotic is that you are ignoring the fact that I did comment on the north tower. At least try to pay attention, conspiracy nut:
I'm not ignoring the fact that you 'commented' at all. See here for my response (since you seem incapable of mastering the complex 'scroll up' maneuver). However, when I pointed out that the crash of Flight 11 on 9/11 only delivered 70% of the energy the tower was designed to withstand (see here for the math), and still collapsed into a tidy pile of rubble, your response was 'The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring.'. This statement is what is 'unbelieveably idiotic', and demonstrates your intellectual dishonesty far better than I ever could have.
You are ignoring the fact that the top of the building crashed down on the floors below, as proven by the fact that you ignored my comment about the north tower.
And you are ignoring the fact that you have not adequately explained why this collapse started.
Ignoring for just a moment that this 'progressive collapse theory' has three glaring problems:
Ignoring the inconvenient problems of the 'progressive collapse' theory for just a moment, saying the collapse happened because the top floors fell down on the rest of the structure is akin to saying that a gun went off because the firing pin struck the shell. It's a frighteningly stupid argument, and I hope you'll have the courtesy of withdrawing it before it darkens this thread any further.
No you have not.
Now what have I told you about gainsaying, hkmwbz?
You have ignored facts and twisted other facts
OK, cite the facts you're accusing me of twisting and/or ignoring, and I'll be happy to address your accusations, despite the obvious fact that it's you that's done the lion's share of 'ignoring' with your childish gainsaying.
Instead of making a fool of yourself, go read the Wikipedia article on your conspiracy theories.
Wow....you never fail to amuse, do you, hkmwbz? First the North Tower is a 'red herring', and now I'm being directed to check my facts on Wikipedia. Perhaps if you followed your own advice, you would have seen that the neutrality of the Wikipedia article is currently in dispute.
They are all adequately explained.
Then it shouldn't be terribly difficult for you to use these 'explanations' to counter my arg
...it also sounds strangely familiar, somehow...
Translation: We won't see it in our lifetimes.From TFA (emphasis mine):
I hope I'm wrong, but this sort of thing has been tried before, with less than satisfactory results.
According to Estberg, Microsoft's employees provide an excellent test-bed for the company's products and by providing honest feedback, they also have an opportunity to influence future products.
You might want to actually read the article. From TFA: Those are not my words...they're Mark Estberg's (Microsoft's director of internal security).
Test beds would be created in isolation, with thousands of permutations based on access levels, OS versions, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Again, you might want to share your insights with Mark Estberg. You'll get no argument from me.
However, if they were in fact running test beds rigorously as you describe, one would expect there to be reletively few issues with access levels...but the vast majority of this discussion would seem to contradict that assertion...
The fact that you were rated a "5" shows that the slashdot demographic represents the population of IT morons, for actually thinking your incoherant [sic] post was somehow "interesting".
Oh yes...I forgot...we're all morons (except you, that is). Remind us again why you spend time here.
Most Linus apps that require root privileges, but that I've attempted to run as a less priviliged user, pop up a dialog box requesting a root password (two quick examples that come to mind are ethereal and Yast). In contrast, I've never seen a Windows program ask me to authenticate myself as an admin when I attempt to run it (although I have seen this during installs, so I know it's possible).
I think you're missing the point. I'm not disputing that these programs could be made to run with less than admin access by manipulating registry entries and file & folder perms. My contention is that this work should have been done (but was not done) by the developers who wrote the code in the first place. Without performing these gymnastics, the programs will not run properly under less than admin privileges
What version are you running? Perhaps they've fixed that problem since I encountered it about 4 years ago.
Back then, I was helping to put systems in the library at Chrysler. These systems would be accessed by regular rank-and-file Chrysler employees, and letting them have admin rights simply wasn't an option.
When it came time to test the PowerDVD install (essential for allowing users to view the library DVDs), we found that it just didn't work. After screwing around with directory perms for a few hours, I gave up and called PowerDVD's tech support, and was told quite plainly that admin rights were required...no workaround available and no explanation given.
To sum up, admin-level access had to be allowed for the systems, and we implemented DeepFreeze to prevent the systems from getting irretrivably FUBAR'd (DeepFreeze was cheaper than an alternate solution to PowerDVD, which we got free with the DVD drives).
Unless you have actually tried to configure a ton of apps, you have no authority to make this claim.
I actually have, and I do have the authority, thanks.
Here's a partial list of programs that require admin rights to run (not merely install):
For a detailed discussion of this issue, you might want to look here and here.
The issue is more widespread than you think.
From TFA: No wonder:
- and -
Mabye if M$ developers were forced to run as non-privileged users once in a while, they'd realize that there's a lot of problems with trying to get through the day on a non-admin account. With any luck, this will spur them to design a better way of handling applications that fail due to insufficient privileges, as well as get tough on application developers who sloppily code their apps to demand admin rights.
Again from TFA: I'd hardly call an environment where users have full admin rights to their systems an adequate test-bed.
Once more from TFA: Saying that Microsoft is 'not smarter than any other enterprise in terms of knowing how to address security', while technically true, is deeply misleading. Any company that purports to "eat its own dog food", but performs their testing with full admin rights to the box clearly has a dangerous lack of understanding of security...a lack that we all pay the price for every day.
The correct time to have pointed that out would have been in direct response to my objection.
I directly responded to your objection with a real-life case that many consider to be a 'worst-case' scenario. At the time, I was unaware that your original post was made because you didn't recognize the hyperbole I was going for in my original post.
Before the bold, italics, comments about heads and sand, unnecessary wiki linking, and condescension.
I'm sorry that bold and italics disturb you so. Pity you couldn't see past them to the message. As for my comment about 'heads and sand', I feel it's justified, since you've chosen to take issue with my use of hyperbole to make a point, rather than the point itself. As for the 'unnecessary wiki linking', again, at the time, I thought it was necessary, as I believed that your objection was based on ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt at trolling.
Apparently you are unaware of the disturbing resemblence of your scenario to those espoused by folks who seriously include democrats and environmentalists in the set of endangered ideologies.
Indeed, I am unaware. Perhaps you would be so good as to furnish some links.
So since you now claim hyperbole in the inclusion of those two, are you still serious about the inclusion of unruly citizens and political dissidents?
Absolutely. At least you got that much.
Or was that also guarded by the invisible sarcasm tag?
Or mabye you didn't. Pity.
(By the way, was that statement guarded by the 'invisible sarcasm tag'?)
I would just like to add that it is this subthread which caused me just now to decide never to pay attention to mod insightful comments.
We can only hope.
(By the way, Gulogulo, you can come out from under the AC blankie now, it's painfully obvious that it's you. It's a shame you lack the courage to confront me openly.)
*sigh*
As I explained earlier, my inclusion of Democrats, along with environmentalists, was the use of hyperbole to make a point.
Apparently, I'm going to have to slow-pitch these in the future...perhaps if I included members of PETA, Linux enthusiasts, and musicians in my list, it would have been clearer.
Maybe, maybe not... but then, there are times when time is of the essence, and even the time taken to decrypt something the hard way in a timely manner is of utmost importance if there are potential lives at stake.
I'm sorry, but that argument just doesn't hold water. Your statement is analagous to saying that clothing must be outlawed, since clothing can conceiveably be used to conceal weapons. Frisking certain suspect individuals simply isn't good enough, since locating the weapons in a timely manner is of utmost importance (if there are potential lives at stake).
To continue the analogy, if the suspicion is targeted, frisking works just fine, and works without violating the privacy of innocent citizens. If the suspicion is not targeted, however, frisking everyone is a logistical impossibility, so the outlawing of clothing is the only option.
(And yes, I know my analogy is somewhat flawed, since x-rays can locate some weapons without the need for disrobing, but my point is still valid).
The mere possibility of the interception and decryption of a suspect communication taking too long to save lives is not enough to justify the wholesale violation of the privacy of the citizenry (at least, it shouldn't be in America...).
I was using hyperbole to make a point. Pity you failed to realize that (I had thought the inclusion of 'environmentalists' and 'Democrats' would have made it obvious).
You can oppose anything by invoking the worst possible scenario consequences.
Worst-case scenario, huh?
Your 'worst-case scenarios' are happening.
Right now.
Get your head out of the sand.
As I said in my previous post, there are other ways of getting the content of a conversation. Since the content must be decrypted at either end, listening devices positioned at either endpoint are easily capable of intercepting the communication, encrypted or not.
As I said, this is arduous...much harder than just listening to a line, but eavsedropping on American conversations shouldn't be easy. If the FBI (or whoever) is serious enough about capturing the content of a particular communication to obtain a court order, it's not asking that much more that they work around any encryption present.
The difference here is that while agencies could continue to listen to targeted communications by these methods, the logistics of applying them to blanket surveillance are completely unworkable, offering us some measure of protection from a wholesale violation of our privacy by the government. This is precisely why the government is against encryption...not because it would make individual cases harder, but because it would make blanket surveillance impossible.
From another NYTimes article, Bush Aide Defends Eavesdropping on Phone Calls(emphasis mine):
So why exactly is the government getting their knickers in a twist over Zfone? After all, the program is just intended to compile a database of call information, not actually listen to the content of the conversations. Doing that, as the administration has repeatedly told us, would require a court order.
So if you have a person you suspect from the numbers he's connected with, and you do obtain that court order, and it turns out he's using Zfone, there are other ways of getting the content of that conversation (hint: it has to be unencrypted at some point, so the 'terrorists' can understand each other). Arduous, sure, but since this will be done on only a select few, it's not that much of a hardship.
No, the reason the government doesn't like Zfone is because they want perform blanket surveillance on all American citizens; to listen to all our calls, all the time. By utilizing speech-recognition software and an ever growing list of suspect words and phrases, they will be able to keep tabs on the unruly U.S. population, weeding out terrorists, political dissidents, environmentalists, Democrats, and other 'undesirables'.
They should be ditching it on at least the $499 'tard box' version, since it will not be able to play the movies in 1080p High-Def when ICP starts being implemented on Blu-Ray disks.
But of course, this isn't about marketing a useful product...this is about pushing a standard.
Tying to sell a console without games is like trying to sell a gun without ammunition. Reeves' blithe assertion that their 'brand equity' will induce gamers to shell out 600 clams for their console, despite the dearth of available games, is pure fantasy. There are other consoles out there, that are far cheaper, and have games now. I personally can't imagine how Sony's going to move any of these consoles before the games become available.
That said, perhaps Sony would have a better chance of moving said consoles if it didn't take its customer base for granted in such a shockingly flippant way. The $600 price tag is bad enough, but Reeves' interview with Computer and Video Games probably cost Sony a lot of business from spite alone.
Also, from the IGN article: Sony, if you've got so much frelling 'brand equity' that you can try to sell us a console for $600 without any games, why do you feel compelled to market a separate, 'tard-box'?
People love shinies, Flash gives them those shinies, Linux's Flash plugin is bollocks.
That's funny...Flash is one of the few things on Linux that hasn't given me grief.
That and mplayer and xine both having terrible, eye splitting guis make it a nono.
You might want to take a look at some of the flashier frontends out there, like Kaffeine and amaroK. Both of these were available in my OpenSuSE installation, and they look great and work great.
Lol, yeah you're parents should totally use Linux.
And why not? They couldn't understand it any less than they understand XP...and since they don't understand how to defend themselves from viruses and malware either Linux makes more sense for them.
The only reason they aren't on Linux right now is because they're still connecting via dialup (They live in northern lower Michigan), and to date, I've been unsuccessful in getting their dialup to function reliably under Linux. If I can resolve that issue, or if they make the move to DSL (recently made available), they will run Linux, and I will sleep better at night.
This is the best free anti-virus product by far.
I'll go elsewhere for firewall or malware protection.
No need...the above link has that covered, too.
Seriously, though, what exactly do your parents use the XP machine for? Is there a particular reason an alternate, less susceptible OS wouldn't suffice?
No, you have not.
As I've told you before, your vapid gainsaying of my arguments is unacceptable as a debate tactic. Again, provide a rational rebuttal, or be honest enough to admit you are wrong.
The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring.
This is perhaps the funniest/most pathetic thing I have ever read here on Slashdot. To claim that the collapse of one of the WTC towers is 'irrelevant' to the discussion of the events of 9/11 unbelievably idiotic, and graphically illustrates your inability to continue this debate.
This exact situation has never happened before to a building exactly like this one.
As I've told you before, the fact that this identical situation hadn't previously happened does not mean we cannot extrapolate meaningful conclusions from our knowledge of the structures involved and similar events that have happened. If you disagree with this, that means you cannot draw any conclusions about the events of 9/11, including the laughable "official version of events" you cling to with such desperation.
Sorry to disappoint you, but it is your insane conspiracy theory which is demonstrably false.
So go ahead and demonstrate. I've referenced a lot of information in this thread to show the fallaciousness of your "conspiracy theory" (after all, that's all the 'official version of events' really is...just a ridiculous conspiracy theory that fails to agree with even the most elementary of observed events). The least you could do is respond in kind, but, you don't have any facts, do you? That's why your primary debate tactic is gainsaying.
Your "facts" are nothing but baseless claims.
Fine. Refute them. Reference some facts of your own. Do something other than mindlessly yammer "yes it could" and "yes it does".
Also, why are you assuming that I'm an American?
Only an American could be this willfully ignorant.
In any case, I doubt that anyone else is reading this, so I've done what I wanted to do: Make sure that gullible fools aren't sucked in by your lies.
Yes, most probably stopped reading after this post, since it was then that it was apparent that this debate was over. Unfortunate, because then they missed your claim that "The north tower is irrelevant", and it is "nothing but a red herring", and so missed the chance to see the true depths of your hypocrisy and ignorance.
From TFA (emphasis mine): Now the question is: was this merely an innocent mistake, or actually a subtle commentary by Tony Smith, who is probably pissed that he has to shell out £425 for a PS3?
I didn't say there was no risk. I did say:
- and -
From TFA: This is just plain stupid. Apparently, Representative Wolf's former crusades against meth and medical marijuana no longer have the punch needed, especially in an election year, so he stirs up some ridiculous FUD about Lenovo laptops.
Never mind that the State Department would probably be wiping the default software load on these laptops in favor of its own custom software load (frankly, if they don't, they're idiots). Never mind that the State Department itself (as well as any other networks these systems will be connecting to) should be adequately protected by firewalls to prevent any unauthorized phoning-home by these systems (again, idiots if they don't). Never mind that someone at least halfway competent should be able to analyze packets exiting these systems to determine conclusively, one way or another, if they are trying to compromise security (again...well, you get the idea).
Trouble is, none of these measures will provide Rep. Wolf with the political ammo required in a year divisible by 2. By denouncing the Lenovo laptops as a 'security risk', he insures that his constituents (at least the less-technically minded of them) perceive him as 'fighting for America'.