I'm a bit bothered by the childish kneejerk reaction of "fight" and "buy a jammer" to repair what is in essence a big legal privacy loophole. If being tracked and identified bothers you, outlaw or regulate tracking.
If you lack the will or the stamina to fight this through the ballot box, then why do you have voting rights? Might as well dispense with them right now, yes?
It's fundamentally wrong to indiscriminately interfere with or obstruct devices (cellphones, GPS) near you just because you might be tracked through them. In doing that you're overstepping the boundaries of your own rights and encroaching on other people's rights. The proper response would be to turn your cellphone off if you don't want to be tracked, or to ditch the GPS tracker you object to.
There are very good reasons to outlaw the possession or operation of e.g. GPS jammers in public places and to enforce such laws simply because jammers can also interfere with other people's legitimate use of the same..
Besides which, any store or mall is free to refuse people who operate any kind of jammer entry, or to kick them out if they switch one on while inside. And absent legal protection, your boss might just make it a condition of employment that you remain traceable. That's where your spunky "fight" will lead you. Defeat.
The way through the ballot box starts looking a lot brighter compared to that.
Counter to what you seem to think, there are legal provisions for the government to tap into communications between US citizens.
Installing tap rooms in telephone switches and internet exchanges isn't illegal in and by itself. Tapping the lot and temporarily storing it isn't technically illegal either, as it's only a step to make traffic accessible to scrutiny.
Automatically scanning all such traffic for keywords or patterns of keywords or patterns of communication that may point to terrorist activity probably isn't illegal either.
Only the very last step, taking the data generated on domestic traffic by the electronic dragnet and having it looked at by NSA analysts may violate the law. May, because again there are circumstances that warrant inspection outright, such as a court warrant, or establishing that at least one of the parties engaged in domestic communication is also communicating with a target outside the US.
That's because you can't sensibly fence it off. US citizens have a way of communicating abroad and then turning around and communicating domestically.
So there is so much grey territory here that one should think trice before shouting that it's "illegal".
And even in the (unlikely) event that the courts and the House could be sold on doing something that harmful to national security there are ways of tapping into domestic communications (the "last step") that don't involve NSA analysts: just share the take and ask e.g. the Brits to sift through it.
Sorry, but wholesale Internet and Email surveillance are here to stay. Just as they are in China, Russia, France, the UK and lots of other places I don't know of. And why? Because the Internet has developed into the mainstream of human communication and interaction for any distance beyond one's immediate physical surroundings. Governments simply can't ignore that. Which is why "laws" will be (re-)interpreted, (re-)formulated, or adapted outright to allow it.
Yes, insurance companies are a lot more risk minded than the average company. They also see a lot more 'fail' events than any single ordinary company so they are much more aware of various risks.
So it's reasonable to assume that they will impose more effective and more thorough security standards than companies would otherwise do. Just think about fire hazards. Most companies I know of implement fire prevention measures, install firefighting equipment, and conduct fire drills because they are obligated to do so by law or by their insurance company. Not because they feel any special responsibility towards their employees, their neighbours, or society at large.
The flip side of the coin however is that there is little incentive to go one step further than they are obligated to. In other words: what matters isn't whether there is a risk, but whether it's covered.
And besides, insurance companies care only about the *financial* damage, i.e. the amount of the claim. To begin with, they will demand that companies they insure limit the potential damage through contract negotiations, terms of use etc.. That potentially leaves a window open for painful security breaches that nonetheless carry little financial consequences.
I'm not sure how that will play out, but given the history of the past 5-10 years compulsory safety standards do seem needed.
So in essence you agree that we need an NSA of sorts (and I agree), but that it should work differently when it comes to tapping US internal emails (which is fine with me).
It's one thing to disapprove of internal communications being put filtered a dragnet, but what do you propose instead? Nothing? And if not, who is to carry it out? The FBI?
Chances are that the FBI lacks the technical means to do this, and funding them do build up such capabilities will be very expensive as my guess is that you can't cut the NSA's capabilities without compromising their ability to monitor foreign traffic.
Safe communication means safe means for propaganda, avenues for radicalisation and recruitment, and for coordination and planning. And that's plenty harmful.
If you really want to know how important secure communication is considered, ask the military, the diplomatic service, and most companies.
I'm all for good old detective work, given a suspect. But the trick is to get a suspect in the first place. Monitoring communication helps enormously in becoming aware of suspects.
A techie who never had any responsibility for whatever part of national security (and never will have) feels 'Simply put, I don't think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form.'
A very "American" sentiment, approximately equivalent to the "thinking" that led to the US marked inferiority in decryption and signals intelligence in the 1930's which in turn allowed Pear Harbour to happen.
Yes, there are good reasons to reign in the NSA when it comes to reading every email sent within, to, from, or through the US. Even though all electronic communications must be "tappable" unless you want to provide absolutely everyone with a safe channel for communication about their criminal, terrorist, or otherwise hostile business.
But those reasons don't abolish the need to have a functional NSA (and not some crippled shadow of it).
There is a difficulty of course: cripple the NSA, and you give free and secure communication to all sorts of undesirables. Allow the NSA unchecked, and make people transparent to the Government, (and worse expose them to typically stupid Government dragnet trawling). I'm not sure myself which way we ought to go, but I'm pretty sure that abolishing the NSA isn't one of the sane ones.
apart from the banks, the tobacco industry, the arms industry, big pharma, big oil, marketing firms and so forth.
If only because their helmsmen are required, by law, to maximise shareholder value. Nothing else. In fact: senior management can be sued if they don't set policy to that effect.
The upshot is that no publicly traded company can really afford a moral or ethical compass. What passes for ethics in companies is usually nothing but well-understood self-interest (as in: avoidance of PR damage and a resulting slump in sales through bad publicity).
Whilst I'm against releasing any kind of software vulnerabilities before the responsible parties have had a decent chance to fix it, I'm just as skeptical as most regarding the inclination of e.g. car manufacturers to improve security unless there is a massive PR debacle. For massive PR debacle read: a nasty and widely covered crash involving a photogenic celebrity (ugly celebrities won't cut it) and his/her children, that can be traced unequivocally to the lax security of a car's on-board datacommunication infrastructure.
That's the main thing I can see as getting their attention and lending the issue any kind or urgency. If only because of CYA considerations on part of top management. The only alternative would (in my view) be compulsory network safety standards for cars.
You wouldn't want to deny them the right to be hypocritical would you? It's bound to be covered by Fundamental Human Rights somewhere.
Joking apart though, as I understood it they weren't so much taking offense at the US monitoring its citizen's electronic traffic as against having their offices bugged (both in Brussels and in Washington).
If I recall, the US weren't very thrilled at its discovery that Jonathan Pollard "was sharing" information with the Israeli's. And how would the US respond if it caught the EU installing microphones and email taps in, say, the Department of Commerce?
So as far as I'm concerned those Europeans are entitled to 1 (one) good howl of indignation, after which there will be a series of nice face-saving committee meetings, some discreet give-and-take, and business as usual. From what I read they had already reached that conclusion (soon after their leaders were briefed by their own intelligence people).
That's what I like about Europeans: they're reasonable, predictable, and (in the end) easy to do business with. Even if they tend to come across a mite smug at times.
Yes. Repeatedly explaining the blatantly obvious to people often seems to strike a comical note.
The NSA is enormously effective at intercepting communications and sifting through them. Agencies such as the CIA, FBI, USN, USAF, US Army generally depend on it for their signals intelligence. The current trouble isn't about the NSA being ineffective, it's about it being too effective and going outside its mandate.
There is no substitute for SIGINT work, in fact it's becoming increasingly important. It provides tremendous value for money in that it can dig up needles in haystacks you couldn't otherwise find.
Even if there really are people out that who don't seem to realise that.
On the one hand the NSA is one of those agencies that really seems to deliver value. And now it's being damaged by being put in the spotlight and having details of its most basic data-gathering methods advertised on the Internet. For a spy-agency, such leaks can ruin its effectiveness because smart targets can now take specific measures to evade this particular system.
And about the whole PRISM business: its such a lot of data that you really don't know what to look for. So unless you want to risk missing something vital, you collect *everything* and then scan the lot. And since you probably can't do that in real-time, you need to store it for awhile. Like e.g. the NSA seems to do with its PRISM program.
On the other hand, I'm getting a bit worried in that the NSA really does seem to be operating outside its original brief and that politicians don't seem to be aware that it does. Of course it's terribly inefficient to have two agencies monitoring communications when one party happens to be in the US. And even if you did hand over to the FBI as soon as it involves anyone on US soil, it would probably still have to be the NSA that operates the computers.
In this respect however I was uncomfortably reminded of the following quote from Henry Kissinger:
Kissinger: Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that. (see http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html )
Judging from the context he probably was only half joking. Clearly the executive arm really does have a dynamic of its own and should therefore be adequately monitored. Even if its power against well-prepared enemies might be "barely sufficient", its current abilities and modus operandi carry a definite potential for wide-spread abuse against ordinary US citizens.
The problem is of course that there is tension between being effective, cost-effective, and safe: you can only get two out of three.
The idea of an optimum patent strength is like kicking in an open door. It's pretty obvious that somewhere between no patents at all and long-lasting patents there is an optimum in terms of societal benefits.
What's lacking unfortunately is the hard work of quantifying the societal benefits as a function on e.g. patent duration. Which incidentally is the 99% perspiration to accompany the 1% inspiration (which all of us probably has anyway).
So Tabarrok's curve is a typical no-brainer (in both senses) as far as it has been worked out.
It's hardly a new point of view. Perhaps mr. Tarrock ought to do a better literature search before coming up with an existing idea and grandly naming a curve after himself.
"Realistically you have three options: Vote republican, vote democrat, or throw away your vote."
The point where you go wrong is in assuming that all democrats / republicans are built equal. They're not. Some of them *will* back a policy that you think is important. You actually need to be a couch potato who knows a bit about the candidates and what they stand for.
I'll admit this though: you need to make politicians and other voters aware that you care about this issue.
You must inform politicians because they are basically brokers: they sell policies that people will buy (i.e. vote for), and they are taking a risk (with their career) when they endorse *any* policy at all. That's because they'll get voted out unless they sell what people want. Some policies are safer than others (touting e.g. 'patriotism', 'god', 'family values', 'jobs', and being 'tough on crime' because few people can actually disagree with the plain language of those policies)
In order to get them to gamble on backing a policy you hold dear, you must give them a way to assess the risk of adopting said policy and convincing them of the cost-benefit advantages of doing so. As in: how many more votes is it likely to get them than to lose them?
You must also inform (and preferably convince) other voters because they are the ones that tip the scales and either generate sufficient of insufficient popular support for an issue.
But in the end it starts with you, not someone else. You'd be amazed what policies you can get adopted if you can muster support. Just look at what the Mickey Mouse industry achieved.
it's no good moaning about it on slashdot. Those prosecutors act in *YOUR NAME*. Their actions are covered by mandates *YOU* ultimately gave them (either actively or by acquiescence).
Think of what and who you will be voting for in the next elections.
It's not too late to reward politicians who will back sane and reasonable sentences.
Only, be aware that idiotically high sentences on computer breaking-and-entering are partly due to the feeling that a 'deterrent' is needed because the chance of discovery and successful prosecution is so low.
Therefore be prepared to allocate more money to e.g. educate the police, DA, and judges on computers and to to give every police force basic competence in computer crime fighting (so they will understand what they're doing). And yes, that will cost money.
This is the fun part though: the toughest questions end up with *YOU*, the voter. And it's *YOU* who bears the ultimate responsibility. Not "The Government", not the DA, not the police. YOU.
Be glad of that though... you don't get that everywhere.
Someone banging out a crappy alpha piece of code by sticking pre-fab functionality together and then billing it as 'office suite' ? Do we really want to know about this?
Even the article noted it doesn't work, being alpha code.
This is too much like all those crummy half-baked Kxxxx apps that come with KDE, and they're a huge waste of download time and disk-space too.
So can we just stop wasting our time with all this and ignore it until and unless there are some in-depth reviews that come up positive *and* that give a good reason to choose whatever this is over existing software?
Agreed. I consider the sentences just about right and very fair.
Only in the US could this be considered a "light" sentence, but then this is where we (collectively) are into "lets-always-mete-out-totally-disproportionate-punishment-to-individuals-hoping-that-it-might-make-others-think-twice".
Not every country shares US values of callously destroying individuals to give the Law a veneer of menace.
And I'll explain why this proves Groklaw's worth
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Groklaw Turns Ten
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· Score: 1
Take this post for example. Fairly standard Slashdot material in that it joyfully mixes a little prejudice with a lot of ignorance and a generous dollop of laziness, and adds a just a pinch of over-the-top cynical populist rhethoric to complete the coctail.
Groklaw on the other hand combines a lot of hard work on fact-checking, reading the source materials, with actual knowledge of things legal and down-to-earth decency and simplicity in its choice of language.
It produces articles that are helpful, well-structured, well-written and devoid of unexplained jargon, and also don't look down on people with a "RTFM u N00B" attitude. It does admittedly take time and concentration to fully read Groklaw articles though: you can't just skim through and expect to understand what was being said.
No wonder it doesn't appeal to many people on Slashdot. It also happens to be *demonstrably* right most of the time, precisely because of the way it goes about its subject.
It also happens that a certain Maureen O'Gara (on a paid assignment from SCO) tried to 'unmask' Groklaw's PJ as an IBM think-tank, a lawyer collective and something else I can't quite remember. She didn't get anywhere I must say, and signally failed to even raise doubt about PJ being a private individual. So it will take more than a two-liner Slashdot drive-by comment to improve on that, dear Anonymous Coward.
And as to someone who isn't a pimply-faced teenager boy being unable to learn about computing, that's just about the height of stupidity. Especially when you consider that items like Linux, writing scripts, doing light programming, and blogging are basically accessible to *anyone* who's moderately smart got a good memory and is dedicated. Talent, in particular, is not involved at this level. There's nothing much to it really, apart from putting in some work. Teenagers tend, being largely unfamiliar with the concept, not to realise that.
It seems you rubbed your two braincells together once too often Anonymous.
The argument: "We need those plastic printable guns to keep the big bad government in check doesn't hold water. Whilst it may have some superficial 'survivalist' appeal, it lacks substance.
Why so? Let me explain.
Supposing I were, for the sake of the argument, to agree with your implicit assumption that "the Government" is somehow kept from becoming despotic because lots of people have a handgun at home. I'm definitely not in agreement with you on this assumption, but supposing I were.
Even then the availability of a crummy printable plastic gun won't have any impact on gun availability for law-abiding citizens, who do happen to be in the majority. They can, quite legally, buy all the guns they can stomach from their local arms dealer. Pretty good guns too, by all accounts, and a load of ammunition to go with it.
What would *you* rather have for "self-defence": a standard run-of-the-mill no-frills steel pistol of a reputable make, or some plastic contraption that could blow up in your hand at any shot and which will be accurate enough only for a shootout inside an elevator or an airplane?
The only segment of society that will actually benefit from printable guns is that segment that really wants to have a gun, no matter how crummy and makeshift, that they can get their mitts on without having to register or that will cause any inconvenient questions being asked (like: "Do you have a criminal record?" or "Have you been diagnosed as insane?"). Or the segment that's looking for a gun that won't register on most types of scanner.
I don't think you'd want to aid either segment with obtaining a plastic gun.
And of course no criminal who values his competitive edge will want a plastic pop-gun either. Besides they have their channels already. Part of their job-description as it were.
I therefore conclude that this "we-need-plastic-printable-guns-to keep-the-government-in-check" idea is a big red herring.
And as a later post notes: the small brass cap isn't there to protect the gun from exploding when it's fired. In case you were wondering, I'll tell you what it's for. It's there to ensure reliability of action over a large number of duty cycles. It does that in various ways. The brass cap takes a lot of heat with it if it's ejected directly after the shot (as in a pistol or a rifle). You only need that when you want to be able to sustain a high rate of firing. It also prevents pitting of the barrel, and it ensures low tolerances in the dimension of munitions.
So plastic cartridges are completely feasible for your basic limited-shot hijacker's weapon.
Shock news: first Amendment has limits too
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DoD Descends On DEFCAD
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· Score: 1, Interesting
It never ceases to amaze me how people are able to seize on the Amendments to justify their own short-sighted, stupid, destructive, extremist and anarchist hankerings.
How about all those would-be terrorists who can now print their very own pistols that will fail to show up on airport scanners if they (unaccountably) fail to put a big steel x-ray reflector inside the gun?
How's that for 'clear and present danger? Feel good about sticking it to 'the man' and spreading 100,000 copies of those gun CAD files, do you? Irresponsible is the least one can say about it.
This is the reason neither Joe Sixpack or 'the man in the street' was put in charge or national security or determining whether this or that speech is protected by the first Amendment or not.
The only real problem is that it's too late now. The horse has already bolted, and every man jack on the planet can shortly print his own plastic gun... and use that to highjack an airliner or something... which is what a lot of them seem to want.
Let's juts call this a very 'American' response, shall we?
I think all who read the article agree that the school's response, and in particular that of the school police is completely disproportional, and in fact unreasonable. The fact that one could, if one is so inclined, construe the fact that the chemistry experiment more or less exploded as 'discharge of a weapon' does not mean it is an obvious or justified way to proceed.
Unfortunately, this act of 'throwing the book' at a high school kid for messing up a science experiment very 'American' in its callousness, up to and including the rote disavowal of responsibility on part of the authorities disingeneously parroting stock phrases about "'acts' and 'consequences'".
Clearly in a position of authority one can destroy a young student's life with impunity (an unwarranted criminal record, a huge and irreparable blemish on her CV, plus in all probability a set of ruined grades that will put paid to whatever chance she had of entering college or university), simply because the family in question doesn't seem able to pay for a pricey lawyer or wield the kind of community power that would guarantee a quiet 'settlement' without adverse consequences.
As to 'playing the race card', it's no secret that racism is alive and well in the US, especially the South. This is particularly well-documented, and one certainly doesn't need to refer to the Rodney King affair to provide examples. It is therefore not unreasonable to suspect that this particular over-the-top punishment (for that is what this is) has racist roots. But suspicion is not proof of course.
Admittedly this particular affair could well be the result of equal-opportunity stupidity and callousness. An investigation of the school's record for punishment by race could shed light on this aspect.
However, I feel that the BB-gun anecdote is pertinent, as it highlights a double standard: extreme permissiveness towards guns and deaths caused by them but a hysterical response to a stupid chemistry experiment gone wrong.
If nothing else, the affair serves as an educational example of what to expect in the way of justice, fairness, consideration and wisdom on part of petty officials in the US.
If you just use R to run data through a package (which in my opinion is the quickest way to get a lot of value out of R) then the learning curve is tolerable. Less steep than for SAS (I think), but steeper than for SPSS.
On the other hand: R in and by itself is mostly a tool for statisticians and data analysts (or anyone else who doesn't flinch at having to write scripts, who's acquainted with the phenomenon of 'manual', and who's used to spending a few hours or so reading before they try to do anything). That in itself represents a barrier.
I've found the on-line R documentation mostly unhelpful for beginners (thorough but pedantic, often implicit, and tending to use jargon). The offline 'Introduction to R' is a lot better though, and there are some good user-contributed texts that can be freely downloaded. I agree that it's useless to buy a book on the actual language (be that S or R) because as a beginner you will only use R's ready-made functionality and script that. If you fins yourself delving into the language you're probably doing something wrong (for a beginner). Your best bet is to buy one of the 'cookbooks' for R.
I tried to use it for an undergraduate statistics course in conjunction with Excel using the RExcel package and Rcmder.
The RExcel package establishes a com link between MS Excel and R and comes with an Excel plugin that creates Rcmdr menus in Excel. The net result is that people can load, view, and edit their data in MS Excel, open the menu, send the data to R, do menu-driven analyses in Rcmdr, and bring results back in Excel if required.
It was less than a success. Students stumbled over having to realise you have to send the data to R before the menu options take effect, had difficulty of keeping track of where their 'live' data actually was (Excel or R), and on top of that had difficulty remembering where to look for the menu options.
Yes, I know. Well... they were business school students but still, eh?
I believe that R commander can work for an introductory course, provided you match the content of the course exactly to the RCommander menu or vice-versa. Your students will be a bit hemmed in aftwerwards: they'll be able to replicate the stuff you prepared for them, but as soom as they try anything else they will have to sit down, think, and spend time figuring out how to use the software.
Slashdot Mirror
If you lack the will or the stamina to fight this through the ballot box, then why do you have voting rights? Might as well dispense with them right now, yes?
It's fundamentally wrong to indiscriminately interfere with or obstruct devices (cellphones, GPS) near you just because you might be tracked through them. In doing that you're overstepping the boundaries of your own rights and encroaching on other people's rights. The proper response would be to turn your cellphone off if you don't want to be tracked, or to ditch the GPS tracker you object to.
There are very good reasons to outlaw the possession or operation of e.g. GPS jammers in public places and to enforce such laws simply because jammers can also interfere with other people's legitimate use of the same..
Besides which, any store or mall is free to refuse people who operate any kind of jammer entry, or to kick them out if they switch one on while inside. And absent legal protection, your boss might just make it a condition of employment that you remain traceable. That's where your spunky "fight" will lead you. Defeat.
The way through the ballot box starts looking a lot brighter compared to that.
Installing tap rooms in telephone switches and internet exchanges isn't illegal in and by itself. Tapping the lot and temporarily storing it isn't technically illegal either, as it's only a step to make traffic accessible to scrutiny.
Automatically scanning all such traffic for keywords or patterns of keywords or patterns of communication that may point to terrorist activity probably isn't illegal either.
Only the very last step, taking the data generated on domestic traffic by the electronic dragnet and having it looked at by NSA analysts may violate the law. May, because again there are circumstances that warrant inspection outright, such as a court warrant, or establishing that at least one of the parties engaged in domestic communication is also communicating with a target outside the US.
That's because you can't sensibly fence it off. US citizens have a way of communicating abroad and then turning around and communicating domestically.
So there is so much grey territory here that one should think trice before shouting that it's "illegal".
And even in the (unlikely) event that the courts and the House could be sold on doing something that harmful to national security there are ways of tapping into domestic communications (the "last step") that don't involve NSA analysts: just share the take and ask e.g. the Brits to sift through it.
Sorry, but wholesale Internet and Email surveillance are here to stay. Just as they are in China, Russia, France, the UK and lots of other places I don't know of. And why? Because the Internet has developed into the mainstream of human communication and interaction for any distance beyond one's immediate physical surroundings. Governments simply can't ignore that. Which is why "laws" will be (re-)interpreted, (re-)formulated, or adapted outright to allow it.
And yes, tough luck for people who thought they could make an end-run around regulations and taxation by coming up with an "unofficial" new currency.
As long as bitcoin was a fringe phenomenon it could be ignored, but now it's time for it to grow up apparently.
So it's reasonable to assume that they will impose more effective and more thorough security standards than companies would otherwise do. Just think about fire hazards. Most companies I know of implement fire prevention measures, install firefighting equipment, and conduct fire drills because they are obligated to do so by law or by their insurance company. Not because they feel any special responsibility towards their employees, their neighbours, or society at large.
The flip side of the coin however is that there is little incentive to go one step further than they are obligated to. In other words: what matters isn't whether there is a risk, but whether it's covered. And besides, insurance companies care only about the *financial* damage, i.e. the amount of the claim. To begin with, they will demand that companies they insure limit the potential damage through contract negotiations, terms of use etc.. That potentially leaves a window open for painful security breaches that nonetheless carry little financial consequences.
I'm not sure how that will play out, but given the history of the past 5-10 years compulsory safety standards do seem needed.
So in essence you agree that we need an NSA of sorts (and I agree), but that it should work differently when it comes to tapping US internal emails (which is fine with me).
It's one thing to disapprove of internal communications being put filtered a dragnet, but what do you propose instead? Nothing? And if not, who is to carry it out? The FBI?
Chances are that the FBI lacks the technical means to do this, and funding them do build up such capabilities will be very expensive as my guess is that you can't cut the NSA's capabilities without compromising their ability to monitor foreign traffic.
If you really want to know how important secure communication is considered, ask the military, the diplomatic service, and most companies.
I'm all for good old detective work, given a suspect. But the trick is to get a suspect in the first place. Monitoring communication helps enormously in becoming aware of suspects.
A techie who never had any responsibility for whatever part of national security (and never will have) feels 'Simply put, I don't think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form.'
A very "American" sentiment, approximately equivalent to the "thinking" that led to the US marked inferiority in decryption and signals intelligence in the 1930's which in turn allowed Pear Harbour to happen.
Yes, there are good reasons to reign in the NSA when it comes to reading every email sent within, to, from, or through the US. Even though all electronic communications must be "tappable" unless you want to provide absolutely everyone with a safe channel for communication about their criminal, terrorist, or otherwise hostile business.
But those reasons don't abolish the need to have a functional NSA (and not some crippled shadow of it).
There is a difficulty of course: cripple the NSA, and you give free and secure communication to all sorts of undesirables. Allow the NSA unchecked, and make people transparent to the Government, (and worse expose them to typically stupid Government dragnet trawling). I'm not sure myself which way we ought to go, but I'm pretty sure that abolishing the NSA isn't one of the sane ones.
If only because their helmsmen are required, by law, to maximise shareholder value. Nothing else. In fact: senior management can be sued if they don't set policy to that effect.
The upshot is that no publicly traded company can really afford a moral or ethical compass. What passes for ethics in companies is usually nothing but well-understood self-interest (as in: avoidance of PR damage and a resulting slump in sales through bad publicity).
Whilst I'm against releasing any kind of software vulnerabilities before the responsible parties have had a decent chance to fix it, I'm just as skeptical as most regarding the inclination of e.g. car manufacturers to improve security unless there is a massive PR debacle. For massive PR debacle read: a nasty and widely covered crash involving a photogenic celebrity (ugly celebrities won't cut it) and his/her children, that can be traced unequivocally to the lax security of a car's on-board datacommunication infrastructure.
That's the main thing I can see as getting their attention and lending the issue any kind or urgency. If only because of CYA considerations on part of top management. The only alternative would (in my view) be compulsory network safety standards for cars.
Joking apart though, as I understood it they weren't so much taking offense at the US monitoring its citizen's electronic traffic as against having their offices bugged (both in Brussels and in Washington).
If I recall, the US weren't very thrilled at its discovery that Jonathan Pollard "was sharing" information with the Israeli's. And how would the US respond if it caught the EU installing microphones and email taps in, say, the Department of Commerce?
So as far as I'm concerned those Europeans are entitled to 1 (one) good howl of indignation, after which there will be a series of nice face-saving committee meetings, some discreet give-and-take, and business as usual. From what I read they had already reached that conclusion (soon after their leaders were briefed by their own intelligence people).
That's what I like about Europeans: they're reasonable, predictable, and (in the end) easy to do business with. Even if they tend to come across a mite smug at times.
The NSA is enormously effective at intercepting communications and sifting through them. Agencies such as the CIA, FBI, USN, USAF, US Army generally depend on it for their signals intelligence. The current trouble isn't about the NSA being ineffective, it's about it being too effective and going outside its mandate.
There is no substitute for SIGINT work, in fact it's becoming increasingly important. It provides tremendous value for money in that it can dig up needles in haystacks you couldn't otherwise find.
Even if there really are people out that who don't seem to realise that.
On the one hand the NSA is one of those agencies that really seems to deliver value. And now it's being damaged by being put in the spotlight and having details of its most basic data-gathering methods advertised on the Internet. For a spy-agency, such leaks can ruin its effectiveness because smart targets can now take specific measures to evade this particular system.
And about the whole PRISM business: its such a lot of data that you really don't know what to look for. So unless you want to risk missing something vital, you collect *everything* and then scan the lot. And since you probably can't do that in real-time, you need to store it for awhile. Like e.g. the NSA seems to do with its PRISM program.
It can't come as a surprise really, in view of this slashdot story: http://slashdot.org/story/06/06/15/1829246/government-adds-consumer-databases-to-mining-queries . Remember that admiral Poindexter with his Total Information Awareness (TIA) programme? It looks as if his ideas have been implemented from the first to the last, only better.
On the other hand, I'm getting a bit worried in that the NSA really does seem to be operating outside its original brief and that politicians don't seem to be aware that it does. Of course it's terribly inefficient to have two agencies monitoring communications when one party happens to be in the US. And even if you did hand over to the FBI as soon as it involves anyone on US soil, it would probably still have to be the NSA that operates the computers.
In this respect however I was uncomfortably reminded of the following quote from Henry Kissinger:
Judging from the context he probably was only half joking. Clearly the executive arm really does have a dynamic of its own and should therefore be adequately monitored. Even if its power against well-prepared enemies might be "barely sufficient", its current abilities and modus operandi carry a definite potential for wide-spread abuse against ordinary US citizens.
The problem is of course that there is tension between being effective, cost-effective, and safe: you can only get two out of three.
What's lacking unfortunately is the hard work of quantifying the societal benefits as a function on e.g. patent duration. Which incidentally is the 99% perspiration to accompany the 1% inspiration (which all of us probably has anyway).
So Tabarrok's curve is a typical no-brainer (in both senses) as far as it has been worked out.
What's needed is an analysis along the lines of the one by e.g. Rufus Pollock (see http://rufuspollock.org/papers/optimal_copyright_term.pdf ) or the one described here: http://www.ipdigit.eu/2010/09/what-is-the-optimal-copyright-length/ Of course this is where political viewpoints enter the debate, as evidenced by the views of the Von Mises institute (see http://archive.mises.org/17319/optimal-patent-and-copyright-term-length/ ) who cite people that argue that patents don't contribute at all to spurring innovation (something that anyone who has ever pitched his idea to a VC with the objective of funding a startup will reject out of hand).
It's hardly a new point of view. Perhaps mr. Tarrock ought to do a better literature search before coming up with an existing idea and grandly naming a curve after himself.
"Realistically you have three options: Vote republican, vote democrat, or throw away your vote."
The point where you go wrong is in assuming that all democrats / republicans are built equal. They're not. Some of them *will* back a policy that you think is important. You actually need to be a couch potato who knows a bit about the candidates and what they stand for.
I'll admit this though: you need to make politicians and other voters aware that you care about this issue.
You must inform politicians because they are basically brokers: they sell policies that people will buy (i.e. vote for), and they are taking a risk (with their career) when they endorse *any* policy at all. That's because they'll get voted out unless they sell what people want. Some policies are safer than others (touting e.g. 'patriotism', 'god', 'family values', 'jobs', and being 'tough on crime' because few people can actually disagree with the plain language of those policies)
In order to get them to gamble on backing a policy you hold dear, you must give them a way to assess the risk of adopting said policy and convincing them of the cost-benefit advantages of doing so. As in: how many more votes is it likely to get them than to lose them?
You must also inform (and preferably convince) other voters because they are the ones that tip the scales and either generate sufficient of insufficient popular support for an issue.
But in the end it starts with you, not someone else. You'd be amazed what policies you can get adopted if you can muster support. Just look at what the Mickey Mouse industry achieved.
Think of what and who you will be voting for in the next elections.
It's not too late to reward politicians who will back sane and reasonable sentences.
Only, be aware that idiotically high sentences on computer breaking-and-entering are partly due to the feeling that a 'deterrent' is needed because the chance of discovery and successful prosecution is so low.
Therefore be prepared to allocate more money to e.g. educate the police, DA, and judges on computers and to to give every police force basic competence in computer crime fighting (so they will understand what they're doing). And yes, that will cost money.
This is the fun part though: the toughest questions end up with *YOU*, the voter. And it's *YOU* who bears the ultimate responsibility. Not "The Government", not the DA, not the police. YOU.
Be glad of that though ... you don't get that everywhere.
Even the article noted it doesn't work, being alpha code.
This is too much like all those crummy half-baked Kxxxx apps that come with KDE, and they're a huge waste of download time and disk-space too.
So can we just stop wasting our time with all this and ignore it until and unless there are some in-depth reviews that come up positive *and* that give a good reason to choose whatever this is over existing software?
Only in the US could this be considered a "light" sentence, but then this is where we (collectively) are into "lets-always-mete-out-totally-disproportionate-punishment-to-individuals-hoping-that-it-might-make-others-think-twice".
Not every country shares US values of callously destroying individuals to give the Law a veneer of menace.
Groklaw on the other hand combines a lot of hard work on fact-checking, reading the source materials, with actual knowledge of things legal and down-to-earth decency and simplicity in its choice of language.
It produces articles that are helpful, well-structured, well-written and devoid of unexplained jargon, and also don't look down on people with a "RTFM u N00B" attitude. It does admittedly take time and concentration to fully read Groklaw articles though: you can't just skim through and expect to understand what was being said.
No wonder it doesn't appeal to many people on Slashdot. It also happens to be *demonstrably* right most of the time, precisely because of the way it goes about its subject.
It also happens that a certain Maureen O'Gara (on a paid assignment from SCO) tried to 'unmask' Groklaw's PJ as an IBM think-tank, a lawyer collective and something else I can't quite remember. She didn't get anywhere I must say, and signally failed to even raise doubt about PJ being a private individual. So it will take more than a two-liner Slashdot drive-by comment to improve on that, dear Anonymous Coward.
And as to someone who isn't a pimply-faced teenager boy being unable to learn about computing, that's just about the height of stupidity. Especially when you consider that items like Linux, writing scripts, doing light programming, and blogging are basically accessible to *anyone* who's moderately smart got a good memory and is dedicated. Talent, in particular, is not involved at this level. There's nothing much to it really, apart from putting in some work. Teenagers tend, being largely unfamiliar with the concept, not to realise that.
It seems you rubbed your two braincells together once too often Anonymous.
Gun control works fairly well in most parts of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Korea, and Canada.
It (admittedly) doesn't seem to work in places like Pakistan's Tribal Areas, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chad, Mexico, Colombia, or the US.
I just wonder why that is.
If nothing else, this shows that gun control can work fairly well ... it just depend on who you're dealing with.
Why so? Let me explain.
Supposing I were, for the sake of the argument, to agree with your implicit assumption that "the Government" is somehow kept from becoming despotic because lots of people have a handgun at home. I'm definitely not in agreement with you on this assumption, but supposing I were.
Even then the availability of a crummy printable plastic gun won't have any impact on gun availability for law-abiding citizens, who do happen to be in the majority. They can, quite legally, buy all the guns they can stomach from their local arms dealer. Pretty good guns too, by all accounts, and a load of ammunition to go with it.
What would *you* rather have for "self-defence": a standard run-of-the-mill no-frills steel pistol of a reputable make, or some plastic contraption that could blow up in your hand at any shot and which will be accurate enough only for a shootout inside an elevator or an airplane?
The only segment of society that will actually benefit from printable guns is that segment that really wants to have a gun, no matter how crummy and makeshift, that they can get their mitts on without having to register or that will cause any inconvenient questions being asked (like: "Do you have a criminal record?" or "Have you been diagnosed as insane?"). Or the segment that's looking for a gun that won't register on most types of scanner.
I don't think you'd want to aid either segment with obtaining a plastic gun.
And of course no criminal who values his competitive edge will want a plastic pop-gun either. Besides they have their channels already. Part of their job-description as it were.
I therefore conclude that this "we-need-plastic-printable-guns-to keep-the-government-in-check" idea is a big red herring.
See here: http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Rio-Valu-Hull-12ga-2-3_4-new_primed-blue-10mm-brass-bag_100/productinfo/RIO127010/
And as a later post notes: the small brass cap isn't there to protect the gun from exploding when it's fired. In case you were wondering, I'll tell you what it's for. It's there to ensure reliability of action over a large number of duty cycles. It does that in various ways. The brass cap takes a lot of heat with it if it's ejected directly after the shot (as in a pistol or a rifle). You only need that when you want to be able to sustain a high rate of firing. It also prevents pitting of the barrel, and it ensures low tolerances in the dimension of munitions.
So plastic cartridges are completely feasible for your basic limited-shot hijacker's weapon.
With a little tinkering you can also substitute the percussion cap with something non-metallic too: http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-586081.html
If you go with off-the-shelf materials, the only metallic thingies you'll be left with are the primer and the firing pin.
And I bet you can get rid of those too, e.g. a ceramic firing pin and custom-printed plastic primers.
Gunpowder doesn't show up on ordinary scanners, and you don't *need* metal casings if you only plan to fire one or two shots.
Never heard of plastic bullets have you?
Of course there are limits to how far you can push your first-amendment rights; there have to be. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution and scroll down to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who formulated the clear and present danger test for free speech cases.
How about all those would-be terrorists who can now print their very own pistols that will fail to show up on airport scanners if they (unaccountably) fail to put a big steel x-ray reflector inside the gun? How's that for 'clear and present danger? Feel good about sticking it to 'the man' and spreading 100,000 copies of those gun CAD files, do you? Irresponsible is the least one can say about it.
This is the reason neither Joe Sixpack or 'the man in the street' was put in charge or national security or determining whether this or that speech is protected by the first Amendment or not.
The only real problem is that it's too late now. The horse has already bolted, and every man jack on the planet can shortly print his own plastic gun ... and use that to highjack an airliner or something ... which is what a lot of them seem to want.
I think all who read the article agree that the school's response, and in particular that of the school police is completely disproportional, and in fact unreasonable. The fact that one could, if one is so inclined, construe the fact that the chemistry experiment more or less exploded as 'discharge of a weapon' does not mean it is an obvious or justified way to proceed.
Unfortunately, this act of 'throwing the book' at a high school kid for messing up a science experiment very 'American' in its callousness, up to and including the rote disavowal of responsibility on part of the authorities disingeneously parroting stock phrases about "'acts' and 'consequences'".
Clearly in a position of authority one can destroy a young student's life with impunity (an unwarranted criminal record, a huge and irreparable blemish on her CV, plus in all probability a set of ruined grades that will put paid to whatever chance she had of entering college or university), simply because the family in question doesn't seem able to pay for a pricey lawyer or wield the kind of community power that would guarantee a quiet 'settlement' without adverse consequences.
As to 'playing the race card', it's no secret that racism is alive and well in the US, especially the South. This is particularly well-documented, and one certainly doesn't need to refer to the Rodney King affair to provide examples. It is therefore not unreasonable to suspect that this particular over-the-top punishment (for that is what this is) has racist roots. But suspicion is not proof of course.
Admittedly this particular affair could well be the result of equal-opportunity stupidity and callousness. An investigation of the school's record for punishment by race could shed light on this aspect.
However, I feel that the BB-gun anecdote is pertinent, as it highlights a double standard: extreme permissiveness towards guns and deaths caused by them but a hysterical response to a stupid chemistry experiment gone wrong.
If nothing else, the affair serves as an educational example of what to expect in the way of justice, fairness, consideration and wisdom on part of petty officials in the US.
If you just use R to run data through a package (which in my opinion is the quickest way to get a lot of value out of R) then the learning curve is tolerable. Less steep than for SAS (I think), but steeper than for SPSS.
On the other hand: R in and by itself is mostly a tool for statisticians and data analysts (or anyone else who doesn't flinch at having to write scripts, who's acquainted with the phenomenon of 'manual', and who's used to spending a few hours or so reading before they try to do anything). That in itself represents a barrier.
I've found the on-line R documentation mostly unhelpful for beginners (thorough but pedantic, often implicit, and tending to use jargon). The offline 'Introduction to R' is a lot better though, and there are some good user-contributed texts that can be freely downloaded. I agree that it's useless to buy a book on the actual language (be that S or R) because as a beginner you will only use R's ready-made functionality and script that. If you fins yourself delving into the language you're probably doing something wrong (for a beginner). Your best bet is to buy one of the 'cookbooks' for R.
I tried to use it for an undergraduate statistics course in conjunction with Excel using the RExcel package and Rcmder.
The RExcel package establishes a com link between MS Excel and R and comes with an Excel plugin that creates Rcmdr menus in Excel. The net result is that people can load, view, and edit their data in MS Excel, open the menu, send the data to R, do menu-driven analyses in Rcmdr, and bring results back in Excel if required.
It was less than a success. Students stumbled over having to realise you have to send the data to R before the menu options take effect, had difficulty of keeping track of where their 'live' data actually was (Excel or R), and on top of that had difficulty remembering where to look for the menu options.
Yes, I know. Well ... they were business school students but still, eh?
I believe that R commander can work for an introductory course, provided you match the content of the course exactly to the RCommander menu or vice-versa. Your students will be a bit hemmed in aftwerwards: they'll be able to replicate the stuff you prepared for them, but as soom as they try anything else they will have to sit down, think, and spend time figuring out how to use the software.