Why do you think it matters whether someone's justification is that they are "going to heaven" or "just doing their job?"
War is war and murder is murder, regardless of the reasons of justification. Self-defense is different, but occupying a country isn't self-defense, no matter what certain kleptogarchs would like the masses to believe.
In a war of occupation and insurgency you are basically fighting against civilians; yes, some of them are threat to soldiers - but to say it is any different isn't that clear. They are not necessarily soldiers, and most of them are not "terrorists." Foreign fighters looking for jihad may be, but would they be there if we weren't? Doubtful.
With the hubris, disregard for human rights, international law and the rule of law in general there may come a day when foreign troops are in US streets to enforce something. It may not be likely due to our technological superiority, but it's not impossible. If this happens you best believe that regardless of whether most view it as right or wrong there will be resistance by many civilians.
Civilians are killed all of the time and some losses are considered acceptable by the US given the mission and target. The US has, at certain times in our history, purposely bombed civillian areas and done all sorts of nasty things.
The opium growing going on in Afghanistan is directly benefitting those who have a stake in it; certain components of US intelligence are stakeholders - it is a fact that elements of our CIA specifically have been involved in international drug trafficking for quite some time.
All I am really saying is that none of this is simple, and justifications can be made all sorts of ways, and the only person who can say whether a justification justifies anything are the people directly involved.
I have to say that I love this app. I think the developer is a marketing genius - I think people are pissed because they didn't think of it first.
First off - What could be more American? As we all know there there are tons of shallow, materialistic buffoons who base their entire existence on conspicuous consumption, and seem to think of meaningless status symbols as some modern day Darwinian trait that will attract a mate (especially in America) who is equally as vapid and shallow. This is especially true in America.
Imagine you are Paris Hilton. What could be better than owning the latest in demand gadget? Why, owning the latest in demand gadget with some useless digital trinket of course!!!
People who are saying this is a scam...please. It clearly stated that it had no functionality and it's purpose was to show everyone how rich you are. I do see that one guy says he thought it was a joke and ordered it, so give him his money back, but I would be willing to bet that the rest of those who purchased this want to keep it.
The best part is that it's almost like performance art - you see this on someone's phone you instantly know that there is a good chance that the beginning of this post describes them perfectly - money to burn, status conscious..likely no sense....I love it. Take their money fellow coders!!!
The EFF is exactly right, and this case is being latched onto by those who want to remove privacy and anonymity online.
Because people tend to have such an emotional reaction to what happened to the girl; because it is very sad, and no doubt what Lori Drew did was disgusting and reprehensible, but I don't see anything illegal - to put it in the most simple terms- she IS NOT responsible for Megan Meier's suicide, period.
People who have been treated poorly or cruelly online generally don't kill themselves; this girl was depressed and had other issues - it's extremely sad. You cannot hold somebody responsible for poor choices somebody else makes.
The precedent this would set is unjust, illogical, and an extremely slippery slope. If this happens anything you say to somebody else could make you responsible for actions which they undertake at a later date.
Now that I understand what you were trying to say I don't really want to gut your argument, although I am wondering how much these particular ISPs dropping usenet will really afect it....
- since googlegroups are still accessable from these ISPs afterward and most binaries people use premium services, and much of the rest of the world seems to have a much better handle on using this stuff and does not tend to go along with the "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" approach currently abused in the US.
I definitely remember how cool it was in the mid 90s to participate in the alt groups, and this was even after the AOL influx started, you could meet people with similar geeky or obscure interests and they'd be like an instant friend.
I used to trade live recordings of bands (which is a large part of what I get from binaries these days); I even custom made binaural mics for people when requested - they'd send money and I would build them and there was never even much of a concern of people ripping each other off...so I get your point about how that is kind of a bygone era - but, all of the millions of people worldwide who participate in the newgroups do bring something that those earlier days didn't have - that is a lot more info, a lot more material, and a lot more experience - good and bad...SO all in all I just hope usenet stays strong and weathers whatever crooked or ill-informed but well meaning politicians and money grubbing corporate whores throw at it for whatever reasons.
Re:Apparently decent reporting is DEAD at PcMag...
on
R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I see your point, and you are correct about my missing your meaning in that respect, so I apologize for calling you an idiot on tha basis.
You have to unserstand that I love usenet (for the same reasons as you likely) and have seen several articles lately characterizing it as some "child porn haven darknet" and describing it in a way which clearly showed the writer had no concept of usenet, it's history, or how binaries work. I read your article and appreciated much of it, but I am just pissed off about the whole thing.
I don't just "download binaries and use usenet as a big firehose" i use all aspects of usenet. I post and read text based threads, I download a lot of stuff - most of it non-copyrighted (but not all)....The point I was trying to make is that it is too soon to declare it dead.
If some ISPs stop carrying it, that won't stop everything, but you are right - the more nodes (or however you want to characterize it) it loses, the weaker it becomes in it's decentralization.
Hopefully many ISPs will not stop carrying it. People who want to download bins usually aren't doing so thru an ISP account - What about Europe and Asia?
Apparently decent reporting is DEAD at PcMag....
on
R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008
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· Score: 3, Insightful
What a horrible article with a sensationalistic title. The only good thing I can say about that article is that at least the writer understands the technical aspects of usenet, unlike some of the articles I have seen lately. Claming "Usetnet is dead" is what makes him an idiot. I hope usenet is dead..FOR HIM.
I love the newsgroups and have used all aspects of them daily since the mid 90s. When I discovered binaries in 1998 I couldn't believe how ingenious it was. I have had a premium news service for the past 5 years and it's the one bill I pay every month with joy...Usenet is not dead - it's only gotten better. But they WANT to kill it.
If the ISP want to discontinue them they're stupid. It only bothers me in so much as I feel that is the first step in a campaign to ruin them, but due to the way usenet works, it would be a difficult task and would basically require removing all freedom on the internet (which is something these groups want, that is their goal - make no mistake about it - the corporate/governmental groups that are pushing this sort of thing want to turn the net into some bastardized bowlderized version of a three-way cross between early AOL, the home shopping network and MSNBC. Fuck that.
Obviously my post touched a nerve. Don't know why that is, it's not like anyone forced you to read it. I think the point I was making in my post flew right by you.
- And when you're talking about the Pentagon accounting scams that have been unearthed in the past it was blatant theft, not "special kryptonite bolts." IIRC there was like a thousand dollar toilet seat, etc.
My problem with the "cost plus" accounting is that it gives the contractor a percentage of the cost of the job - what this means is that the more expensive the job is, the more money the contractor makes..which, instead encouraging them to hire the best person for the job and take cost into account - encouages only the highest possible cost.
When you look at what happened in Iraq with the provisional authority flying in (literally) PALLETS of hundred dollar bills and the amount of graft that went on....
SO that you don't miss it again, here was my point: There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing - basically people using government contracting to get rich... I doubt that McKinnon actually "damaged" anything which had to truly be repaired to the tune of 900k, if anything he probably did them a service and hopefully they had competent people setting up proper security.
Knowing how much graft is involved at times (and I am not saying all contract govt spending is bad, but certainly this had that excessive ring to it).
This from an organization that charges $50k for a bolt (or whatever ridiculous amount is was) and spports "cost plus" contracting.
Likely, they have quite lax security, saw this hack attempt as a opportunity to hire a friend of someone to "secure" their network and then got a bill for 900K (which likely consisted of a large kickback for one or several other people who selected the contractor).
Sorry - but that it how it seems to work in the US defense sector.
"In the same way, I disagree with people who keep saying that "companies aren't evil --just the people within them". As a whole, companies can indeed be evil, greedy, upstanding, etc, just as people can be evil, greedy, etc. even if you can break their actions down into component actions which, by themselves, are not inherently evil etc."
I agree with you - Corporations can be "evil" - but to to clarify it further, there are three things I can think of right off of the top of my head which enable a corporation to be infinitely more "evil" than a person:
1. The group dynamic - this can be positive or negative, I am sure everyone can think of some of the positive sides of working within a group, but I am talking about the negatives - like how people behave when they are part of a group - there are numerous studies which show that people will go along with things that they would never do alone (even incredibly cruel and evil things) when they are part of a group and/or feel that they have backing of authorities. There are numerous experiment results that attest to this.
2. Add to that the faceless nature of beaurocracy - the fact that even at high levels people know that their actions as groups or individuals will reflect upon a faceless corporation, thus they feel masked.
3. Add to those the benefits corporations have, primary from the government - especially here in the US (and I am not even mentioning the illegal, behind the scenes backroom stuff that we all know goes on sometimes) - but things like corporate personhood where a company can enjoy legal benefits normally only granted to persons - yet, due to some of the things I mentioned above and other things they aren't held to the same standards of responsibility as a person...Just think about recent rulings on things like eminent domain and how the Enron pensioners got screwed, war profiteering...I am sure if you think about it you can come up with many things corporations have done which are anti-humanist to say the least.
SO I think looking at the above things it is apparent that large corporations not only provide a good base of cover for illegal and unethical activity - they can damn near be a magnet and playground for sociopaths and other people who put their self and selfish needs above just about anything.
Don;t get me wrong, I am not saying every single thing about all coporations is bad - but certainly much of the status quo relating to corps. in the US disturbs me.
This is exactly what I do too - only, in addition to passwords the document is about 4 pages long and lays out everything someone coming in from the outside would need to know to run our network and servers. It is kept in the safe of our Managing Director.
I think a lot of people just don't understand this Terry Childs story. I know a lot of situations like this where one person in IT has all of the administrative control.
I feel for the guy, and think that, possibly, there may even be more to the story. I am glad we heard more about what was really going on from that person who knew the situation well - but I would like to hear Terry's side really.
This is true, and the fact that some people have such a hard time believing it and how willing they are to ridicule others for even considering it just shows how skilled the tactics of those who wanted to discredit this in the eyes of the public were.
There are astronauts, governors, generals, colonels, Joint Cheifs from the Eisenhower white house and over 400 other military and government witnesses who have prepared testimoney under oath for congress (which you can view and read the transcripts from) that attests to this via the Disclosure Project.
These are people with nothing to gain and everything to lose who have come out because they are tired of the secrecy and of the fact that these technologies have been misppropriated.
Get the executive summary or the DVD or watch the download of the Natl Press Club event or download this material via your favorite file sharing method - it's not the usual UFO blurry video overproduced crap. I don't know anyone who has seen this who still doesn't believe.
We already know that there is technology in use by the advertising and opinion industries that tracks which spot on a computer screen a user is looking at and for how long. It must be one or multiple cameras which relate your eyeball location to specific points on a screen. I don't know how sophisticated the hardware has to be and how much the viewers position relative to the screen matters, but it would seem to me that this sort of technology along with voice activation or something would be a much more natural, less strenuous way to interact with a screen.
Touch screens sound nice and all, but (as others have mentioned here) I don't know about having my arm up all day touching a screen. At least with a mouse you can rest your wrist on something and if you have things set up ergonomically then you can use the mouse for many hours without it really getting to you. For phones and small devices they're perfect, but for laptops, desktops, and very large screens they just aren't practical.
I can understand the temptation to use your mod points to mod someone you disagree with down, I am sure we all feel like it now and then - but that isn't what they're for.
I think 99% of those of us on Slashdot who have mderator access are better than this...You should be to....shame.
I have always wanted a feature in the right-click context menu caled "Folderize" (or some other clever name).
To use it you would select any number of files, then right click on the group of highlighted files and select "Folderize" from the right-click context menu.
This immedialtely takes all of the foles and creates and folder and places them inside. It would then either autoname the folder - and would have options for how you want this handled.
SO basically what they're saying is: "We're not going to give you due process or follow the law (which we have sworn to uphold) because we know what the government did was wrong and illegal and we know you're right and we would have to throw this case out, and we want to wait until it gets made "retroactively legal" (which is unconstitutional) or the system deteriorates further until it won't even matter, and we can't risk having those in power be angry with us."
I see your point, but I think that is not good enough for a man who has campaigned and claimed the things he has claimed.
You're basically saying "What could he do, this is how Washington works" (which is true)..
The problem though, is that he has been endlessly campaigning on a platform serious progressive change. Even the mainstream-news-watching-"the government really cares about helping people" beleiving-brainwashed masses can see the horrible contradiction in this.
The real problem is that it shows him for what he is, a politician.
I think he is counting on the fact that the only other choice most people THINK they have is McCain....But there is also Ron Paul - who, despite the deviousness of the media trying to give the impression that he isn't running, is still running.
IF we're wishing death upon people (not that a few deaths is going to fix a truly broken system where corruption has been institutionalized) - but again, if you're wishing death on people, I think you may want to aim a little higher than the RIAA.
I agree and I think a lot of people feel the same way, if you do then mod parent up please.
I think most Americans have no idea about the level illegality that our government has risen to; not just this current administration, (though they are by far the most egregious) - this telecom immunity thing is bad enough - but if you consider that is going on in the light of day now, just imagine all of the things that the general public isn;t aware of - there are many things you can find out about if you are a good researcher or read books that have been thoroughly researched (Jim Marrs, Greg Palast are two authors I highly recommend as their credibility is excellent) - if you are interested in the Bush dynasty there are many books but anything by Webster Tarpley is great, you can get his unauthorized biography of George Bush senior fo free on the web (as it has been out of print or supressed for a while now) with this link: http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm.
I am not sure if our republic is past the point of no return, but I fear that. I think people are putting a lot of hope into Obama, and I agree that he seems genuine, but the man is a politican and has taken votes or actions that would seem to be contrary to his stated message of change - like supporting telecom immunity. I fear that if he did get into office and really did try to make some real changes his life would be in danger; but what seems most likely s that he will get into office and be sort of like Clinton - not willing or able to live up to 10% of what he promised.
I thought that the people who really could have made some changes are people like Ron Paul and Mike Gravel - Richardson wasn't bad either - but until the issue with the media being a corporate/governmental mouthpiece is resolved, I am afraid that there may never be real change here.
Granting immunity for illegal, unconstitutional acts after the fact is not only wrong and unconsitutional, it sets a HORRIBLY DANGEROUS PRECEDENT - and this is one aspect people are not considering. IF this precedent is set - then government can basically make anything legal after the fact. If this sort of thing continues, eventually they won't even need to that to do what they like.
People are having an overly emotional reaction to this case because it involves a 13 year old child who killed herself; but as horrible and disgusting as what Lori Drew did was, it does not make her responsible for Megan Meier's suicide. Megan Meier is the only responsible for that, and if it wouldn't have been this situation it could have been any other that occurs to teenagers every day; she suffered from acute depression. She didn't "hound her to suicide." People are responsible for their own actions.
We cannot allow laws to be created based on these sort of emotionally charged "one of a kind" situations. Violating Myspace's TOS is not a fucking felony, and it is NOT okay for DAs to decide to come up with some dubious legal strategy just to make someone pay.
That is wrong...In America it isn't supposed to work that way. you don't decide that someone needs to be punished more than what the law allows for based on what they did and decide that you are going to create some bullshit trumped up crap to do it.
IMO this particular charge should be thrown out, and if the court has any legal sense and a competent judge it will be.
Yes. There are well understood techniques for transitioning a democracy or an open/free society into a closed fascist state. You could write them down on a paper and make a checklist, and we in America are going right down the list checking those things off as if those who are behind this are reading from a fascist playbook.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you think it matters whether someone's justification is that they are "going to heaven" or "just doing their job?"
War is war and murder is murder, regardless of the reasons of justification. Self-defense is different, but occupying a country isn't self-defense, no matter what certain kleptogarchs would like the masses to believe.
In a war of occupation and insurgency you are basically fighting against civilians; yes, some of them are threat to soldiers - but to say it is any different isn't that clear. They are not necessarily soldiers, and most of them are not "terrorists." Foreign fighters looking for jihad may be, but would they be there if we weren't? Doubtful.
With the hubris, disregard for human rights, international law and the rule of law in general there may come a day when foreign troops are in US streets to enforce something. It may not be likely due to our technological superiority, but it's not impossible. If this happens you best believe that regardless of whether most view it as right or wrong there will be resistance by many civilians.
Civilians are killed all of the time and some losses are considered acceptable by the US given the mission and target. The US has, at certain times in our history, purposely bombed civillian areas and done all sorts of nasty things.
The opium growing going on in Afghanistan is directly benefitting those who have a stake in it; certain components of US intelligence are stakeholders - it is a fact that elements of our CIA specifically have been involved in international drug trafficking for quite some time.
All I am really saying is that none of this is simple, and justifications can be made all sorts of ways, and the only person who can say whether a justification justifies anything are the people directly involved.
I have to say that I love this app. I think the developer is a marketing genius - I think people are pissed because they didn't think of it first.
First off - What could be more American? As we all know there there are tons of shallow, materialistic buffoons who base their entire existence on conspicuous consumption, and seem to think of meaningless status symbols as some modern day Darwinian trait that will attract a mate (especially in America) who is equally as vapid and shallow. This is especially true in America.
Imagine you are Paris Hilton. What could be better than owning the latest in demand gadget? Why, owning the latest in demand gadget with some useless digital trinket of course!!!
People who are saying this is a scam...please. It clearly stated that it had no functionality and it's purpose was to show everyone how rich you are. I do see that one guy says he thought it was a joke and ordered it, so give him his money back, but I would be willing to bet that the rest of those who purchased this want to keep it.
The best part is that it's almost like performance art - you see this on someone's phone you instantly know that there is a good chance that the beginning of this post describes them perfectly - money to burn, status conscious..likely no sense....I love it. Take their money fellow coders!!!
The EFF is exactly right, and this case is being latched onto by those who want to remove privacy and anonymity online.
Because people tend to have such an emotional reaction to what happened to the girl; because it is very sad, and no doubt what Lori Drew did was disgusting and reprehensible, but I don't see anything illegal - to put it in the most simple terms- she IS NOT responsible for Megan Meier's suicide, period.
People who have been treated poorly or cruelly online generally don't kill themselves; this girl was depressed and had other issues - it's extremely sad. You cannot hold somebody responsible for poor choices somebody else makes.
The precedent this would set is unjust, illogical, and an extremely slippery slope. If this happens anything you say to somebody else could make you responsible for actions which they undertake at a later date.
SO wait...Now we have to "be found innocent?"
Isn't that the opposite of how things are supposed to work in this country?
Now that I understand what you were trying to say I don't really want to gut your argument, although I am wondering how much these particular ISPs dropping usenet will really afect it....
- since googlegroups are still accessable from these ISPs afterward and most binaries people use premium services, and much of the rest of the world seems to have a much better handle on using this stuff and does not tend to go along with the "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" approach currently abused in the US.
I definitely remember how cool it was in the mid 90s to participate in the alt groups, and this was even after the AOL influx started, you could meet people with similar geeky or obscure interests and they'd be like an instant friend.
I used to trade live recordings of bands (which is a large part of what I get from binaries these days); I even custom made binaural mics for people when requested - they'd send money and I would build them and there was never even much of a concern of people ripping each other off...so I get your point about how that is kind of a bygone era - but, all of the millions of people worldwide who participate in the newgroups do bring something that those earlier days didn't have - that is a lot more info, a lot more material, and a lot more experience - good and bad...SO all in all I just hope usenet stays strong and weathers whatever crooked or ill-informed but well meaning politicians and money grubbing corporate whores throw at it for whatever reasons.
I see your point, and you are correct about my missing your meaning in that respect, so I apologize for calling you an idiot on tha basis.
You have to unserstand that I love usenet (for the same reasons as you likely) and have seen several articles lately characterizing it as some "child porn haven darknet" and describing it in a way which clearly showed the writer had no concept of usenet, it's history, or how binaries work. I read your article and appreciated much of it, but I am just pissed off about the whole thing.
I don't just "download binaries and use usenet as a big firehose" i use all aspects of usenet. I post and read text based threads, I download a lot of stuff - most of it non-copyrighted (but not all)....The point I was trying to make is that it is too soon to declare it dead.
If some ISPs stop carrying it, that won't stop everything, but you are right - the more nodes (or however you want to characterize it) it loses, the weaker it becomes in it's decentralization.
Hopefully many ISPs will not stop carrying it. People who want to download bins usually aren't doing so thru an ISP account - What about Europe and Asia?
What a horrible article with a sensationalistic title. The only good thing I can say about that article is that at least the writer understands the technical aspects of usenet, unlike some of the articles I have seen lately. Claming "Usetnet is dead" is what makes him an idiot. I hope usenet is dead..FOR HIM.
I love the newsgroups and have used all aspects of them daily since the mid 90s. When I discovered binaries in 1998 I couldn't believe how ingenious it was. I have had a premium news service for the past 5 years and it's the one bill I pay every month with joy...Usenet is not dead - it's only gotten better. But they WANT to kill it.
If the ISP want to discontinue them they're stupid. It only bothers me in so much as I feel that is the first step in a campaign to ruin them, but due to the way usenet works, it would be a difficult task and would basically require removing all freedom on the internet (which is something these groups want, that is their goal - make no mistake about it - the corporate/governmental groups that are pushing this sort of thing want to turn the net into some bastardized bowlderized version of a three-way cross between early AOL, the home shopping network and MSNBC. Fuck that.
Obviously my post touched a nerve. Don't know why that is, it's not like anyone forced you to read it. I think the point I was making in my post flew right by you.
- And when you're talking about the Pentagon accounting scams that have been unearthed in the past it was blatant theft, not "special kryptonite bolts." IIRC there was like a thousand dollar toilet seat, etc.
My problem with the "cost plus" accounting is that it gives the contractor a percentage of the cost of the job - what this means is that the more expensive the job is, the more money the contractor makes..which, instead encouraging them to hire the best person for the job and take cost into account - encouages only the highest possible cost.
When you look at what happened in Iraq with the provisional authority flying in (literally) PALLETS of hundred dollar bills and the amount of graft that went on....
SO that you don't miss it again, here was my point: There are plenty of examples of this sort of thing - basically people using government contracting to get rich... I doubt that McKinnon actually "damaged" anything which had to truly be repaired to the tune of 900k, if anything he probably did them a service and hopefully they had competent people setting up proper security.
Knowing how much graft is involved at times (and I am not saying all contract govt spending is bad, but certainly this had that excessive ring to it).
This from an organization that charges $50k for a bolt (or whatever ridiculous amount is was) and spports "cost plus" contracting.
Likely, they have quite lax security, saw this hack attempt as a opportunity to hire a friend of someone to "secure" their network and then got a bill for 900K (which likely consisted of a large kickback for one or several other people who selected the contractor).
Sorry - but that it how it seems to work in the US defense sector.
Wow...I never though of it this way.
What if...What if everything could be like that?
Tell me more about this "only do things that you really want to do" philosophy....It sounds revolutionary...
"In the same way, I disagree with people who keep saying that "companies aren't evil --just the people within them". As a whole, companies can indeed be evil, greedy, upstanding, etc, just as people can be evil, greedy, etc. even if you can break their actions down into component actions which, by themselves, are not inherently evil etc."
I agree with you - Corporations can be "evil" - but to to clarify it further, there are three things I can think of right off of the top of my head which enable a corporation to be infinitely more "evil" than a person:
1. The group dynamic - this can be positive or negative, I am sure everyone can think of some of the positive sides of working within a group, but I am talking about the negatives - like how people behave when they are part of a group - there are numerous studies which show that people will go along with things that they would never do alone (even incredibly cruel and evil things) when they are part of a group and/or feel that they have backing of authorities. There are numerous experiment results that attest to this.
2. Add to that the faceless nature of beaurocracy - the fact that even at high levels people know that their actions as groups or individuals will reflect upon a faceless corporation, thus they feel masked.
3. Add to those the benefits corporations have, primary from the government - especially here in the US (and I am not even mentioning the illegal, behind the scenes backroom stuff that we all know goes on sometimes) - but things like corporate personhood where a company can enjoy legal benefits normally only granted to persons - yet, due to some of the things I mentioned above and other things they aren't held to the same standards of responsibility as a person...Just think about recent rulings on things like eminent domain and how the Enron pensioners got screwed, war profiteering...I am sure if you think about it you can come up with many things corporations have done which are anti-humanist to say the least.
SO I think looking at the above things it is apparent that large corporations not only provide a good base of cover for illegal and unethical activity - they can damn near be a magnet and playground for sociopaths and other people who put their self and selfish needs above just about anything.
Don;t get me wrong, I am not saying every single thing about all coporations is bad - but certainly much of the status quo relating to corps. in the US disturbs me.
This is exactly what I do too - only, in addition to passwords the document is about 4 pages long and lays out everything someone coming in from the outside would need to know to run our network and servers. It is kept in the safe of our Managing Director.
I think a lot of people just don't understand this Terry Childs story. I know a lot of situations like this where one person in IT has all of the administrative control.
I feel for the guy, and think that, possibly, there may even be more to the story. I am glad we heard more about what was really going on from that person who knew the situation well - but I would like to hear Terry's side really.
This is true, and the fact that some people have such a hard time believing it and how willing they are to ridicule others for even considering it just shows how skilled the tactics of those who wanted to discredit this in the eyes of the public were.
There are astronauts, governors, generals, colonels, Joint Cheifs from the Eisenhower white house and over 400 other military and government witnesses who have prepared testimoney under oath for congress (which you can view and read the transcripts from) that attests to this via the Disclosure Project.
These are people with nothing to gain and everything to lose who have come out because they are tired of the secrecy and of the fact that these technologies have been misppropriated.
I suggest that if you are truly interested in this you check out the Disclosure Project at http://www.disclosureproject.org/
Get the executive summary or the DVD or watch the download of the Natl Press Club event or download this material via your favorite file sharing method - it's not the usual UFO blurry video overproduced crap. I don't know anyone who has seen this who still doesn't believe.
IMPOSTER!!!
(like a real slashdotter hasn't seen Office Space)!
We already know that there is technology in use by the advertising and opinion industries that tracks which spot on a computer screen a user is looking at and for how long. It must be one or multiple cameras which relate your eyeball location to specific points on a screen. I don't know how sophisticated the hardware has to be and how much the viewers position relative to the screen matters, but it would seem to me that this sort of technology along with voice activation or something would be a much more natural, less strenuous way to interact with a screen.
Touch screens sound nice and all, but (as others have mentioned here) I don't know about having my arm up all day touching a screen. At least with a mouse you can rest your wrist on something and if you have things set up ergonomically then you can use the mouse for many hours without it really getting to you. For phones and small devices they're perfect, but for laptops, desktops, and very large screens they just aren't practical.
Why was parent modded Troll??
Seriously, that is some abusive moderation.
I can understand the temptation to use your mod points to mod someone you disagree with down, I am sure we all feel like it now and then - but that isn't what they're for.
I think 99% of those of us on Slashdot who have mderator access are better than this...You should be to....shame.
Something tells me that there is more to this story.
People don't usually hold out like that after being arrested just because they don't want to lose their job.
My guess is that there is something politcal going on where there shouldn't be or shouldn't have been - he may be standing on principal.
Surely you're being facetious. Thank god we have free and anonymous services on the web.
What, you'd prefer to live in a world where you couldn't be anonymous online?
Your argument soudn like you're saying this is a bad thing and everything everyone does online should be id verified.
Fuck that.
We're going to have a hard enough time preventing that from happening thanks to the fascism creep going on in our sick system as it is.
I have always wanted a feature in the right-click context menu caled "Folderize" (or some other clever name).
To use it you would select any number of files, then right click on the group of highlighted files and select "Folderize" from the right-click context menu.
This immedialtely takes all of the foles and creates and folder and places them inside. It would then either autoname the folder - and would have options for how you want this handled.
SO basically what they're saying is: "We're not going to give you due process or follow the law (which we have sworn to uphold) because we know what the government did was wrong and illegal and we know you're right and we would have to throw this case out, and we want to wait until it gets made "retroactively legal" (which is unconstitutional) or the system deteriorates further until it won't even matter, and we can't risk having those in power be angry with us."
I see your point, but I think that is not good enough for a man who has campaigned and claimed the things he has claimed.
You're basically saying "What could he do, this is how Washington works" (which is true)..
The problem though, is that he has been endlessly campaigning on a platform serious progressive change. Even the mainstream-news-watching-"the government really cares about helping people" beleiving-brainwashed masses can see the horrible contradiction in this.
The real problem is that it shows him for what he is, a politician.
I think he is counting on the fact that the only other choice most people THINK they have is McCain....But there is also Ron Paul - who, despite the deviousness of the media trying to give the impression that he isn't running, is still running.
IF we're wishing death upon people (not that a few deaths is going to fix a truly broken system where corruption has been institutionalized) - but again, if you're wishing death on people, I think you may want to aim a little higher than the RIAA.
I agree and I think a lot of people feel the same way, if you do then mod parent up please.
I think most Americans have no idea about the level illegality that our government has risen to; not just this current administration, (though they are by far the most egregious) - this telecom immunity thing is bad enough - but if you consider that is going on in the light of day now, just imagine all of the things that the general public isn;t aware of - there are many things you can find out about if you are a good researcher or read books that have been thoroughly researched (Jim Marrs, Greg Palast are two authors I highly recommend as their credibility is excellent) - if you are interested in the Bush dynasty there are many books but anything by Webster Tarpley is great, you can get his unauthorized biography of George Bush senior fo free on the web (as it has been out of print or supressed for a while now) with this link: http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm.
I am not sure if our republic is past the point of no return, but I fear that. I think people are putting a lot of hope into Obama, and I agree that he seems genuine, but the man is a politican and has taken votes or actions that would seem to be contrary to his stated message of change - like supporting telecom immunity. I fear that if he did get into office and really did try to make some real changes his life would be in danger; but what seems most likely s that he will get into office and be sort of like Clinton - not willing or able to live up to 10% of what he promised.
I thought that the people who really could have made some changes are people like Ron Paul and Mike Gravel - Richardson wasn't bad either - but until the issue with the media being a corporate/governmental mouthpiece is resolved, I am afraid that there may never be real change here.
Granting immunity for illegal, unconstitutional acts after the fact is not only wrong and unconsitutional, it sets a HORRIBLY DANGEROUS PRECEDENT - and this is one aspect people are not considering. IF this precedent is set - then government can basically make anything legal after the fact. If this sort of thing continues, eventually they won't even need to that to do what they like.
Sorry, but I think that is total bullshit.
People are having an overly emotional reaction to this case because it involves a 13 year old child who killed herself; but as horrible and disgusting as what Lori Drew did was, it does not make her responsible for Megan Meier's suicide. Megan Meier is the only responsible for that, and if it wouldn't have been this situation it could have been any other that occurs to teenagers every day; she suffered from acute depression. She didn't "hound her to suicide." People are responsible for their own actions.
We cannot allow laws to be created based on these sort of emotionally charged "one of a kind" situations. Violating Myspace's TOS is not a fucking felony, and it is NOT okay for DAs to decide to come up with some dubious legal strategy just to make someone pay.
That is wrong...In America it isn't supposed to work that way. you don't decide that someone needs to be punished more than what the law allows for based on what they did and decide that you are going to create some bullshit trumped up crap to do it.
IMO this particular charge should be thrown out, and if the court has any legal sense and a competent judge it will be.
Yes. There are well understood techniques for transitioning a democracy or an open/free society into a closed fascist state. You could write them down on a paper and make a checklist, and we in America are going right down the list checking those things off as if those who are behind this are reading from a fascist playbook.