That is mostly because (a) the Japanese phone system is government supported rather than a competitor in a field of many companies, (b) Japan uses an entirely different type of phone system with lots and lots of very small cells, and (c) the traffic mix in Japan is very different - lots and lots of SMS, almost no voice traffic.
With the current rate plan, no matter how much they grow the network AT&T gets nothing from it - it just costs money.
There might be an argument if people were running from the iPhone because it was unusably slow and network congestion was preventing phone calls from working. Then you could make the case that for customer retention and new customers is was necessary to spend the money.
Spending money with no hope of increased revenue isn't the way to run a business. It specifically leads to either someone else running it the right way or no business left to run.
Of course, they aren't getting any money for this increased capacity, but it would make lots of existing customers feel better. Happier. Happy customers mean... well, happy customers, right? That would be a good thing.
Of course, it might mean that AT&T Wireless just pulls the plug because their wireless costs far exceed their revenue. Sad, really sad. Not so happy customers. But it was great while it lasted.
I guess the lesson is that all good things comes to an end. Maybe someone else will come along and provide unlimited wireless pretty much for free. I mean, how much can it really cost, anyway?
Maybe the government should just make sure that everyone has free wireless, you know like the "right to have wireless" or something. It would be really great. Well, maybe not for AT&T, but great for the rest of us.
You wouldn't think that AT&T is driving themselves into the ground by having (a) limited capacity and (b) selling unlimited access would you?
I guess we can all hope for free government-mandated wireless now. Since Bush is gone it could probably get passed.
This sounds like you are using a company to find contract work. This is a lot different than using someone to find permanent employment.
For finding contract work, you need to work with ethical people and you need to work with people that will fairly represent you. They are likely getting a chunk of the hourly rate so you are going to have an ongoing relationship one way or another. This sort of company is probably very helpful - almost necessary - and it shouldn't be impossible to shun the folks that are misrepresenting you.
However, for permanent employment, I can't imagine a need for a headhunter/placement consultant these days. There are way, way too many people offering themselves through everything like Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice and Craigslist. The fees headhunters are going to charge employers are way out of line these days and as someone that does hire programmers and other folks there is no way I would use a headhunter referral these days. There are just too many people looking for jobs to bother - the agency is going to charge me at least a month's salary if not more for a service with no value.
Sure, there are lots of guys out there that will offer to put your resume in front of the "right" people. However, everyone today is more than happy to take the 50 resumes that come in response to any ad without paying. And then you don't have to worry about unethical people.
And finally we'll all be using $20 smartphones and $75 computers. I cannot wait.
And I can't wait to hire software engineers for $3500 a year. Of course, nobody is going to be employed in the US in any technical position anymore - why would they, when any company in the US just has their products stolen and copied cheaper in China. I guess there is also the idea that there isn't any point to paying anyone for software development because it is all free now, right?
Sure, you can have your cheap stuff. Just remember who is being paid to make it. Won't be you. Or your neighbor. Both of you can commuite together to bag groceries at the food bank.
Yeah. Right. Read some more. You would need almost 100,000 of these batteries to power a cell phone. Yup, that would be a nice little cart full of them that you could drag around behind you.
You would be better off with a single marine-type lead-acid battery. Something that would last for a year without recharging. It would be smaller, lighter, and probably 1000x cheaper. No new technology required.
It is not an RTG. RTG devices run pretty hot - thermal, you get it.
What these devices do is output an incredibly small amount of electricity from the actual radioactive decay of materials. Incredibly small. Microwatts.
They are used in pacemakers and the like because of extremely low power requirements - less than a watch - and the need for a stable power source that will last years and years.
It might be possible to stack up 100 of these to power a single LED. That is the level of output from these devices. And they aren't cheap.
A lot of the "leaks" are intentional by one side trying to discredit the other.
A news report of a man looking for sex in an airport bathroom harms the credibility of the man, according to this philosophy. What they are missing is it also discredits the organization that he belongs to.
The expectation of the leakers and the people enabling them is that the public will see only the first level. Anyone paying attention can clearly see the entire process being corrupted from within and nobody in Congress having any credibility whatsoever.
I cannot imagine anyone worrying about verification in today's climate.
If it is a good story, it is going to make it out on the Internet. Period. If the "newstainment" on TV wants to pick it up, they will do so. If it is a good story, it is going to get lots and lots of exposure.
Truth? Has almost nothing to do with it. Truth today is in the eye of the beholder and it is all relative. If you believe that the World Trade Center towers were demolished by Israeli agents working for George Bush, nothing is going to deter you, and you will only listen to "news" that confirms this. If you believe that Obama is "the One" and can do no wrong, nothing is going to deter that opinion. There are believers for everything, no matter how wrong-headed it might seem.
Truth? Wikipedia might actually have a good idea. Truth is whatever the majority believes at the moment, and the majority can always edit the story to make it fit the latest fad.
I bet most run-of-the-mill users don't know they have the infection and could act upon it if they knew.
The problem is that most customers cannot do anything about their problems, except take the computer to someone that can help them. And because that is going to cost money, most people are going to wait until after Christmas, or after their vacation, or after their vacation after Christmas. Or until hell freezes over.
Assuming a pop-up of any sort is going to actually inform people is a mistake - almost everyone has some kind of pop-up blocking in effect today and the ones that get through are ignored.
The right thing to do is contact the person and see if they can explain the activity. No contact, cut off the account. No explaination, cut off the account. It does little good for the other 6 billion people on the planet to let infected computers continue to spew spam and phishing emails.
So let's see what happens if your neighbor gets a bill in the mail indicating that they used 34 thousand quadriloons. There are only two possible responses:
1. Wow. That's nice. 2. Frantically calls ISP believing they only used 22 thousand.
End result? Nothing happens. We are talking about something that makes as much sense to your neighbor as "34 thousand quadriloons". The truth is that these people are incapable of "administering" their computer system and what we have are general-purposes computer systems that require trained people to do the administration. These computer systems were sold to people with the understanding that no such training or administration was required. The end result is they are trying to use them as an appliance when they are not applicances.
Do you require any training to use a TV? How about a VCR? How about a toaster? No? Good - these are appliances. With a computer system the difference is that if you add the "wrong" software to it the computer can be used to damage everyone else on the planet. I assure you that this has nothing to do with the operating system, security or anything else. If Joe User can add software to the computer without requiring the advice and authorization from a knowledgeable administrator, you have a disaster in the making.
Credit card fraud is pretty much a victimless crime. Well, the merchant that accepted the card (or card number) is on the hook for it, but in no case ever is the original cardholder liable for anything.
This used to be called "credit card fraud" but the FBI decided to reclassify it as "Identity Theft" some time ago. It is silly to do so because it makes folks like Todd Davis (Lifelock scam) rich.
So there is nothing to pay back to anyone except maybe the merchants. And they aren't complaining because they are insured against this sort of loss.
I haven't seen exactly where it is documented what operating systems are not affected by this. I would suspect that most are, and by design all should be. If a null prefix is valid, then it should be accepted. If it is not valid, then it is the same level problem as a CA that issues a certificate for anyone without proper authentication.
Further, if all operating systems other than Windows are not affected by this it doesn't really matter. 90% or more of PayPal's customer base is using Windows. Recommending in some pedantic manner that the user should change operating systems is pointless - most users are incapable of changing without buying a new computer. I'm sure PayPal would like to assist them in that purchase but that isn't the point. And if the problem is in Windows a different browser isn't likely to make any difference at all.
This isn't a PayPal problem. It is a world at large problem. Certificates formed like this are an attack on the trust of the Internet. With this being possible, there is no assurance that any certificate is valid anymore. Pretty much, we have CAs issuing certificates without proper validation. That trashes everyone.
The US seriously needs to be on a self-sufficient footing. The first question in any trade negotiation should be "What happens if there is an embargo?" The US has failed to consider that with respect to China - they are the sole supplier for many things, including some military items. A war with China might be over very quickly because if China cut off supplies the military might not be able to fight for very long.
Financially, relying on China or any other country for the level of loans that the US has is absurd. China could, in theory, dictate policy to the US. The current health care reform efforts could be substantially altered should China enter the discussion. Obviously, China could dictate that costs must not be above current spending as they would not finance further debt. This might come as a bit of a surprise to some folks in Washington should it happen.
China could also instruct the US to end operations in Iraq and Afganistan immediately. Failure to comply with China would collapse the US and much of the Western economies. Probably the only reason this isn't happening is it would also knock China off their current high income levels. What many people do not understand is that it is not up to the people in China, it is up to their unelected leaders and that China has suffered from a really bad economy for a very long time. It wouldn't be anything new to the people there. And it wouldn't really affect the leaders that much - they wouldn't suffer one bit.
The problem with warrants across multiple jurisdictions is the same as the problem with warrants in general. Until you have some level of "proof" many judges are reluctant to grant the police access to materials that would develop further proof.
In the case of electronic crimes you might have an IP address and little else. Well, you could find the ISP that way but find they are an absolute block. So you are now in the position of trying to get a judge to sign a "John Doe" warrant to discover the identity of a person that may or may not be involved in a crime. But the investigation is going nowhere until you get a look at the computers that could have connected using that IP address. The problem is there is little "probable cause" and no physical proof. So unless the crime is of some severe nature - child porn production using little children in the neighborhood, for example - no judge is going to authorize a fishing expedition to find out more. End of process - you aren't going anywhere.
Another problem is jurisdiction and laws. In the US it is illegal to defraud someone of their money. It is apparently not illegal to do so in many other parts of the world. Trying to sort out the differences between laws internationally is not a police problem - in the US it is up to the State Department to do this. And as much as they would like to help, in most cases it is useless because the foreign countries are not able to devote much effort to electronic crimes. So even if you investigate and come up with a trail that leads to Romainia, you aren't going to go anywhere. Romainian police might be very sympathetic, but they do not have the resources, time, or anything else to focus on some poor Americans losing their money.
You are wrong about most police agencies. They have lots of very busy people doing computer forensics and doing a pretty good job at it. The problem is one of access and authorization. Without access all of their skills are useless. Without authorization (by a court) they aren't going to get access. So you have a bunch of people doing other stuff - child porn, mostly - because they can't do anything to assist with electronic crimes.
You are correct about money. Investigation is expensive work and it needs to show some kind of benefit for the money to be spent. Today, child porn is considered to be a big deal and lots of money is spent on investigating it. Electronic crimes would be investigated and prosecuted if there was any hope of investigations going anywhere. Because of the above issues with warrants and jurisdictions, the investigation never gets off the ground.
You are correct about motivation, political and otherwise. If you have a high profile case, the State Department will try very hard to get through to the right people, even if it takes months. With a high profile case elected judges will approve warrants where they would otherwise not do so - because they can't afford to be connected with a high profile failure.
In short, don't blame the computer forensic professionals working for the police. It isn't their fault their hands are tied. But things aren't going to get any better until we seriously untie their hands and conduct investigations into this sort of stuff.
If I have something of value and Person Q can take it, "liberate it" and make it available for free to the world, many people view it as Person Q's moral obligation to do so.
Notwithstanding that in doing so deprives me of revenue. Income. Livelihood. Food, clothing and shelter.
There might be some people that still pay for access even though it is available for free. Most people would term these do-gooders as "suckers" because they are wasting their own hard-earned money. Money that could be put to use buying something that isn't available for free.
Of course, when the owner of the material of value is the government with nearly unlimited investigative and enforcement powers that they are going to be significantly interested in this "liberation". So interested as to likely make life hell for the liberator. The owner of the liberated material is likely to consider this plain and simple theft, not much different than a hand reaching into their pocket for their wallet. The effect is about the same.
Clearly, what we have seen is there are three levels of owners of liberated materials. The first level is you and me - nobody. Our ability to deal with this is zero. The anonymous nature of the Internet makes it nearly impossible to really track down someone unless you already know their identity or can connect them with a serious crime. The crime in this case is too trivial for anyone to bother with. Try to make sure that you either have nothing of value to liberate or that what you have is physical goods that cannot be liberated through the Internet.
The second level is the RIAA. You might get lucky and get sued by them, but probably not. If you aren't sharing outbound they have virtually no way to track you down without the cooperation of your ISP, which they are loath to do. But if you do get caught in their net you will have nothing but trouble. Fortunately, getting caught in their net is very, very rare. The reward is so much higher than the risk that nearly everyone takes advantage of the materials liberated from the RIAA's grasp.
Obviously, the third level is the government. Do not liberate from the government. You will eventually be found and made to pay in some fashion.
Sure, it would be nice if there were rules and people followed them. The rule seems to be to take what you can get away with. Grab all you can, while you can. Of course, this rule turns the world on its ear and results in eventual anarchy. But that will be our children's problem, not ours.
Unless I am completely mistaken, most botnet infections occur because of user action, not because the computer is allowing remote connections. Linux would be equally vulnerable if unqualified users were using it and installing software on it. When the software they are installing asks for the root password, they would obviously supply the root password, because they are unqualified.
That explains the situation for Windows. Plain and simple, these people using Windows have no business administering a computer, period. I assure you that a botnet infection program can be written for Linux and simply ask the user to do whatever is required during installation. You may discount these because YOU wouldn't do what was requested, but that has nothing to do with what your average Windows-using grandmother would or would not do.
Sorry, you can't make a computer secure that is (a) administered by someone unqualified to do so, and (b) allows software to be installed on it. I would claim an iPod is completely secure. So is a clock radio. If you give a computer user that cannot administer their machine an appliance that cannot have other software installed on it, you can have a secure computer for unqualified users.
A general-purpose programmable computer that requires administration cannot be secure unless it is administered by a qualified person. This is why a lot of corporate systems are indeed secure even through they are running Windows. It is also clearly why other corporate systems are completely insecure and have botnet infections.
This isn't about making anything illegal or prosecuting people that drive while texting.
This is all about making it clear to people that texting while driving is wrong, illegal and AGAINST THE LAW. This might sink into the heads of people.
Sure, after someone hits someone there are about 100 different laws that can be used to prosecute someone. That doesn't make it clear to people that texting while driving is illegal. Just getting up from your chair probably violated some law in some jurisdiction somewhere - that doesn't matter. What matters is that people understand what they are not supposed to do.
Unforunately, right now it seems that passing a new law is about the only way to do that.
There seem to be two definitions of "criminal" here.
The definition that the police would like to use is "someone who committed a crime".
The definition that some people would like to use is "someone convicted of a crime".
I'd say the first is more accurate, with "convicted criminal" applying after the trial. With the second definition there is no need for police because there can be no criminals until they are sucaessfully prosecuted. You might find that difficult using the second definition. Judges do not grant warrants to the police for investigations of innocent people. They might grant a warrant for a criminal that has not been successfully prosecuted yet.
This is especially true in states where judges are elected rather than appointed. Criminals vote too, you know.
Why would a judge issue a warrant without proof? Unless there is proof that the "suspect" committed a crime there are plenty of judges that will not issue a warrant based on "suspicion" or even "probable cause". In areas where judges are elected many judges are rightfully concerned that they might not get elected if they approve police requests for warrants. Criminals vote too, you know.
From what I have heard, it is a continue battle between prosecutors (who get the warrants), the police (who want them to conduct an investigation) and the judges. There are likely judges that will approve almost anything where there is probable cause - but there are certainly judges that do not approve warrants without information far in excess of probable cause.
The result of this is requiring a warrant for GPS tracking of a vehicle simply means that officers will be tailing the suspect directly until there is a sufficient proof to satisfy a judge. If anything, that is worse.
The problem with PDF is it is a page description language. The entire structure of a PDF document is driven by the idea of a page. The document is created with a specific page size and it can only be effectively rendered on a page of that size.
This means you need to have a display of that size (US letter, legal or A4 commonly) or you need to go through all sorts of gyrations of zooming, panning and scrolling. The Kindle DX is an attempt at having enough of a display size to minimize the zooming, panning and scrolling but I suspect it does not eliminate the problem completely. This makes the user interface incrediblly clumsey and difficult.
I don't think a real letter-size display is practical for a hand-held device either.
This pretty much means that PDF is not a compatible format for a hand-held reading device, period. Any hand-held reading device. I suppose you could try to extract the text and dynamically reformat the document for a smaller screen size. This would seem to be fraught with problems and not work all the time, probably sometimes in spectacularly bad ways.
I have a Kindle 2 and it works fine for displaying text and HTML documents (mobi) that are not designed for a specific page size. The graphics display leaves something to be desired because there needs to be some ability to adjust the contrast of a graphic even with the 16-level grayscale. This is likely because the eInk display is non-linear in its display of grayscale values. The end result I have seen is graphics are too dark.
Documents on the Kindle 2 that are formatted for a specific page size do not work very well at all, which is what I suspect the Kindle DX folks are learning.
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Today, if they charged 50 cents they would get to keep maybe 20 cents. Credit card or other processing fees are going to eat the rest.
Even Paypal if you want to have a business account is going to charge fees.
That is mostly because (a) the Japanese phone system is government supported rather than a competitor in a field of many companies, (b) Japan uses an entirely different type of phone system with lots and lots of very small cells, and (c) the traffic mix in Japan is very different - lots and lots of SMS, almost no voice traffic.
With the current rate plan, no matter how much they grow the network AT&T gets nothing from it - it just costs money.
There might be an argument if people were running from the iPhone because it was unusably slow and network congestion was preventing phone calls from working. Then you could make the case that for customer retention and new customers is was necessary to spend the money.
Spending money with no hope of increased revenue isn't the way to run a business. It specifically leads to either someone else running it the right way or no business left to run.
AT&T should build more network capacity.
Of course, they aren't getting any money for this increased capacity, but it would make lots of existing customers feel better. Happier. Happy customers mean ... well, happy customers, right? That would be a good thing.
Of course, it might mean that AT&T Wireless just pulls the plug because their wireless costs far exceed their revenue. Sad, really sad. Not so happy customers. But it was great while it lasted.
I guess the lesson is that all good things comes to an end. Maybe someone else will come along and provide unlimited wireless pretty much for free. I mean, how much can it really cost, anyway?
Maybe the government should just make sure that everyone has free wireless, you know like the "right to have wireless" or something. It would be really great. Well, maybe not for AT&T, but great for the rest of us.
You wouldn't think that AT&T is driving themselves into the ground by having (a) limited capacity and (b) selling unlimited access would you?
I guess we can all hope for free government-mandated wireless now. Since Bush is gone it could probably get passed.
This sounds like you are using a company to find contract work. This is a lot different than using someone to find permanent employment.
For finding contract work, you need to work with ethical people and you need to work with people that will fairly represent you. They are likely getting a chunk of the hourly rate so you are going to have an ongoing relationship one way or another. This sort of company is probably very helpful - almost necessary - and it shouldn't be impossible to shun the folks that are misrepresenting you.
However, for permanent employment, I can't imagine a need for a headhunter/placement consultant these days. There are way, way too many people offering themselves through everything like Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice and Craigslist. The fees headhunters are going to charge employers are way out of line these days and as someone that does hire programmers and other folks there is no way I would use a headhunter referral these days. There are just too many people looking for jobs to bother - the agency is going to charge me at least a month's salary if not more for a service with no value.
Sure, there are lots of guys out there that will offer to put your resume in front of the "right" people. However, everyone today is more than happy to take the 50 resumes that come in response to any ad without paying. And then you don't have to worry about unethical people.
And finally we'll all be using $20 smartphones and $75 computers. I cannot wait.
And I can't wait to hire software engineers for $3500 a year. Of course, nobody is going to be employed in the US in any technical position anymore - why would they, when any company in the US just has their products stolen and copied cheaper in China. I guess there is also the idea that there isn't any point to paying anyone for software development because it is all free now, right?
Sure, you can have your cheap stuff. Just remember who is being paid to make it. Won't be you. Or your neighbor. Both of you can commuite together to bag groceries at the food bank.
Read the description some. It's not milliwatts, it is nanowatts.
Useful in some very, very specialized applications. Useless for just about everything else.
Yeah. Right. Read some more. You would need almost 100,000 of these batteries to power a cell phone. Yup, that would be a nice little cart full of them that you could drag around behind you.
You would be better off with a single marine-type lead-acid battery. Something that would last for a year without recharging. It would be smaller, lighter, and probably 1000x cheaper. No new technology required.
It is not an RTG. RTG devices run pretty hot - thermal, you get it.
What these devices do is output an incredibly small amount of electricity from the actual radioactive decay of materials. Incredibly small. Microwatts.
They are used in pacemakers and the like because of extremely low power requirements - less than a watch - and the need for a stable power source that will last years and years.
It might be possible to stack up 100 of these to power a single LED. That is the level of output from these devices. And they aren't cheap.
A lot of the "leaks" are intentional by one side trying to discredit the other.
A news report of a man looking for sex in an airport bathroom harms the credibility of the man, according to this philosophy. What they are missing is it also discredits the organization that he belongs to.
The expectation of the leakers and the people enabling them is that the public will see only the first level. Anyone paying attention can clearly see the entire process being corrupted from within and nobody in Congress having any credibility whatsoever.
I cannot imagine anyone worrying about verification in today's climate.
If it is a good story, it is going to make it out on the Internet. Period. If the "newstainment" on TV wants to pick it up, they will do so. If it is a good story, it is going to get lots and lots of exposure.
Truth? Has almost nothing to do with it. Truth today is in the eye of the beholder and it is all relative. If you believe that the World Trade Center towers were demolished by Israeli agents working for George Bush, nothing is going to deter you, and you will only listen to "news" that confirms this. If you believe that Obama is "the One" and can do no wrong, nothing is going to deter that opinion. There are believers for everything, no matter how wrong-headed it might seem.
Truth? Wikipedia might actually have a good idea. Truth is whatever the majority believes at the moment, and the majority can always edit the story to make it fit the latest fad.
I bet most run-of-the-mill users don't know they have the infection and could act upon it if they knew.
The problem is that most customers cannot do anything about their problems, except take the computer to someone that can help them. And because that is going to cost money, most people are going to wait until after Christmas, or after their vacation, or after their vacation after Christmas. Or until hell freezes over.
Assuming a pop-up of any sort is going to actually inform people is a mistake - almost everyone has some kind of pop-up blocking in effect today and the ones that get through are ignored.
The right thing to do is contact the person and see if they can explain the activity. No contact, cut off the account. No explaination, cut off the account. It does little good for the other 6 billion people on the planet to let infected computers continue to spew spam and phishing emails.
So let's see what happens if your neighbor gets a bill in the mail indicating that they used 34 thousand quadriloons. There are only two possible responses:
1. Wow. That's nice.
2. Frantically calls ISP believing they only used 22 thousand.
End result? Nothing happens. We are talking about something that makes as much sense to your neighbor as "34 thousand quadriloons". The truth is that these people are incapable of "administering" their computer system and what we have are general-purposes computer systems that require trained people to do the administration. These computer systems were sold to people with the understanding that no such training or administration was required. The end result is they are trying to use them as an appliance when they are not applicances.
Do you require any training to use a TV? How about a VCR? How about a toaster? No? Good - these are appliances. With a computer system the difference is that if you add the "wrong" software to it the computer can be used to damage everyone else on the planet. I assure you that this has nothing to do with the operating system, security or anything else. If Joe User can add software to the computer without requiring the advice and authorization from a knowledgeable administrator, you have a disaster in the making.
Credit card fraud is pretty much a victimless crime. Well, the merchant that accepted the card (or card number) is on the hook for it, but in no case ever is the original cardholder liable for anything.
This used to be called "credit card fraud" but the FBI decided to reclassify it as "Identity Theft" some time ago. It is silly to do so because it makes folks like Todd Davis (Lifelock scam) rich.
So there is nothing to pay back to anyone except maybe the merchants. And they aren't complaining because they are insured against this sort of loss.
I haven't seen exactly where it is documented what operating systems are not affected by this. I would suspect that most are, and by design all should be. If a null prefix is valid, then it should be accepted. If it is not valid, then it is the same level problem as a CA that issues a certificate for anyone without proper authentication.
Further, if all operating systems other than Windows are not affected by this it doesn't really matter. 90% or more of PayPal's customer base is using Windows. Recommending in some pedantic manner that the user should change operating systems is pointless - most users are incapable of changing without buying a new computer. I'm sure PayPal would like to assist them in that purchase but that isn't the point. And if the problem is in Windows a different browser isn't likely to make any difference at all.
This isn't a PayPal problem. It is a world at large problem. Certificates formed like this are an attack on the trust of the Internet. With this being possible, there is no assurance that any certificate is valid anymore. Pretty much, we have CAs issuing certificates without proper validation. That trashes everyone.
So where is the CA that will issue bogus null-prefix EV certificates?
I would think www.bankofamerica.com would be a lot more interesting than www.paypal.com
The US seriously needs to be on a self-sufficient footing. The first question in any trade negotiation should be "What happens if there is an embargo?" The US has failed to consider that with respect to China - they are the sole supplier for many things, including some military items. A war with China might be over very quickly because if China cut off supplies the military might not be able to fight for very long.
Financially, relying on China or any other country for the level of loans that the US has is absurd. China could, in theory, dictate policy to the US. The current health care reform efforts could be substantially altered should China enter the discussion. Obviously, China could dictate that costs must not be above current spending as they would not finance further debt. This might come as a bit of a surprise to some folks in Washington should it happen.
China could also instruct the US to end operations in Iraq and Afganistan immediately. Failure to comply with China would collapse the US and much of the Western economies. Probably the only reason this isn't happening is it would also knock China off their current high income levels. What many people do not understand is that it is not up to the people in China, it is up to their unelected leaders and that China has suffered from a really bad economy for a very long time. It wouldn't be anything new to the people there. And it wouldn't really affect the leaders that much - they wouldn't suffer one bit.
The problem with warrants across multiple jurisdictions is the same as the problem with warrants in general. Until you have some level of "proof" many judges are reluctant to grant the police access to materials that would develop further proof.
In the case of electronic crimes you might have an IP address and little else. Well, you could find the ISP that way but find they are an absolute block. So you are now in the position of trying to get a judge to sign a "John Doe" warrant to discover the identity of a person that may or may not be involved in a crime. But the investigation is going nowhere until you get a look at the computers that could have connected using that IP address. The problem is there is little "probable cause" and no physical proof. So unless the crime is of some severe nature - child porn production using little children in the neighborhood, for example - no judge is going to authorize a fishing expedition to find out more. End of process - you aren't going anywhere.
Another problem is jurisdiction and laws. In the US it is illegal to defraud someone of their money. It is apparently not illegal to do so in many other parts of the world. Trying to sort out the differences between laws internationally is not a police problem - in the US it is up to the State Department to do this. And as much as they would like to help, in most cases it is useless because the foreign countries are not able to devote much effort to electronic crimes. So even if you investigate and come up with a trail that leads to Romainia, you aren't going to go anywhere. Romainian police might be very sympathetic, but they do not have the resources, time, or anything else to focus on some poor Americans losing their money.
You are wrong about most police agencies. They have lots of very busy people doing computer forensics and doing a pretty good job at it. The problem is one of access and authorization. Without access all of their skills are useless. Without authorization (by a court) they aren't going to get access. So you have a bunch of people doing other stuff - child porn, mostly - because they can't do anything to assist with electronic crimes.
You are correct about money. Investigation is expensive work and it needs to show some kind of benefit for the money to be spent. Today, child porn is considered to be a big deal and lots of money is spent on investigating it. Electronic crimes would be investigated and prosecuted if there was any hope of investigations going anywhere. Because of the above issues with warrants and jurisdictions, the investigation never gets off the ground.
You are correct about motivation, political and otherwise. If you have a high profile case, the State Department will try very hard to get through to the right people, even if it takes months. With a high profile case elected judges will approve warrants where they would otherwise not do so - because they can't afford to be connected with a high profile failure.
In short, don't blame the computer forensic professionals working for the police. It isn't their fault their hands are tied. But things aren't going to get any better until we seriously untie their hands and conduct investigations into this sort of stuff.
Destruction of revenue, that is.
If I have something of value and Person Q can take it, "liberate it" and make it available for free to the world, many people view it as Person Q's moral obligation to do so.
Notwithstanding that in doing so deprives me of revenue. Income. Livelihood. Food, clothing and shelter.
There might be some people that still pay for access even though it is available for free. Most people would term these do-gooders as "suckers" because they are wasting their own hard-earned money. Money that could be put to use buying something that isn't available for free.
Of course, when the owner of the material of value is the government with nearly unlimited investigative and enforcement powers that they are going to be significantly interested in this "liberation". So interested as to likely make life hell for the liberator. The owner of the liberated material is likely to consider this plain and simple theft, not much different than a hand reaching into their pocket for their wallet. The effect is about the same.
Clearly, what we have seen is there are three levels of owners of liberated materials. The first level is you and me - nobody. Our ability to deal with this is zero. The anonymous nature of the Internet makes it nearly impossible to really track down someone unless you already know their identity or can connect them with a serious crime. The crime in this case is too trivial for anyone to bother with. Try to make sure that you either have nothing of value to liberate or that what you have is physical goods that cannot be liberated through the Internet.
The second level is the RIAA. You might get lucky and get sued by them, but probably not. If you aren't sharing outbound they have virtually no way to track you down without the cooperation of your ISP, which they are loath to do. But if you do get caught in their net you will have nothing but trouble. Fortunately, getting caught in their net is very, very rare. The reward is so much higher than the risk that nearly everyone takes advantage of the materials liberated from the RIAA's grasp.
Obviously, the third level is the government. Do not liberate from the government. You will eventually be found and made to pay in some fashion.
Sure, it would be nice if there were rules and people followed them. The rule seems to be to take what you can get away with. Grab all you can, while you can. Of course, this rule turns the world on its ear and results in eventual anarchy. But that will be our children's problem, not ours.
Unless I am completely mistaken, most botnet infections occur because of user action, not because the computer is allowing remote connections. Linux would be equally vulnerable if unqualified users were using it and installing software on it. When the software they are installing asks for the root password, they would obviously supply the root password, because they are unqualified.
That explains the situation for Windows. Plain and simple, these people using Windows have no business administering a computer, period. I assure you that a botnet infection program can be written for Linux and simply ask the user to do whatever is required during installation. You may discount these because YOU wouldn't do what was requested, but that has nothing to do with what your average Windows-using grandmother would or would not do.
Sorry, you can't make a computer secure that is (a) administered by someone unqualified to do so, and (b) allows software to be installed on it. I would claim an iPod is completely secure. So is a clock radio. If you give a computer user that cannot administer their machine an appliance that cannot have other software installed on it, you can have a secure computer for unqualified users.
A general-purpose programmable computer that requires administration cannot be secure unless it is administered by a qualified person. This is why a lot of corporate systems are indeed secure even through they are running Windows. It is also clearly why other corporate systems are completely insecure and have botnet infections.
This isn't about making anything illegal or prosecuting people that drive while texting.
This is all about making it clear to people that texting while driving is wrong, illegal and AGAINST THE LAW. This might sink into the heads of people.
Sure, after someone hits someone there are about 100 different laws that can be used to prosecute someone. That doesn't make it clear to people that texting while driving is illegal. Just getting up from your chair probably violated some law in some jurisdiction somewhere - that doesn't matter. What matters is that people understand what they are not supposed to do.
Unforunately, right now it seems that passing a new law is about the only way to do that.
There seem to be two definitions of "criminal" here.
The definition that the police would like to use is "someone who committed a crime".
The definition that some people would like to use is "someone convicted of a crime".
I'd say the first is more accurate, with "convicted criminal" applying after the trial. With the second definition there is no need for police because there can be no criminals until they are sucaessfully prosecuted. You might find that difficult using the second definition. Judges do not grant warrants to the police for investigations of innocent people. They might grant a warrant for a criminal that has not been successfully prosecuted yet.
This is especially true in states where judges are elected rather than appointed. Criminals vote too, you know.
Why would a judge issue a warrant without proof? Unless there is proof that the "suspect" committed a crime there are plenty of judges that will not issue a warrant based on "suspicion" or even "probable cause". In areas where judges are elected many judges are rightfully concerned that they might not get elected if they approve police requests for warrants. Criminals vote too, you know.
From what I have heard, it is a continue battle between prosecutors (who get the warrants), the police (who want them to conduct an investigation) and the judges. There are likely judges that will approve almost anything where there is probable cause - but there are certainly judges that do not approve warrants without information far in excess of probable cause.
The result of this is requiring a warrant for GPS tracking of a vehicle simply means that officers will be tailing the suspect directly until there is a sufficient proof to satisfy a judge. If anything, that is worse.
Codec? Any compression implies decompression and recompression. No, you want uncompressed original source material.
The problem with PDF is it is a page description language. The entire structure of a PDF document is driven by the idea of a page. The document is created with a specific page size and it can only be effectively rendered on a page of that size.
This means you need to have a display of that size (US letter, legal or A4 commonly) or you need to go through all sorts of gyrations of zooming, panning and scrolling. The Kindle DX is an attempt at having enough of a display size to minimize the zooming, panning and scrolling but I suspect it does not eliminate the problem completely. This makes the user interface incrediblly clumsey and difficult.
I don't think a real letter-size display is practical for a hand-held device either.
This pretty much means that PDF is not a compatible format for a hand-held reading device, period. Any hand-held reading device. I suppose you could try to extract the text and dynamically reformat the document for a smaller screen size. This would seem to be fraught with problems and not work all the time, probably sometimes in spectacularly bad ways.
I have a Kindle 2 and it works fine for displaying text and HTML documents (mobi) that are not designed for a specific page size. The graphics display leaves something to be desired because there needs to be some ability to adjust the contrast of a graphic even with the 16-level grayscale. This is likely because the eInk display is non-linear in its display of grayscale values. The end result I have seen is graphics are too dark.
Documents on the Kindle 2 that are formatted for a specific page size do not work very well at all, which is what I suspect the Kindle DX folks are learning.