Nothing in that quote suggests it is against the law for the company to retain the SSN in the course of lawful business, and as they are not intending to commit or aid or abet an unlawful activity, then your harshly worded letter would be meaningless.
So tell me, what are they intending to do with it? What he said of DirectTV:
... even if I were to discontinue service with them, they still intended to keep my full SSN on file indefinitely.
And so what do they intend to do with it? Your business with them is complete. Now the only reason they have to keep it is for the purposes of tracking you and privacy invasion.
Like I said in the original post, you'd need a good lawyer and you'd need a solid case. You would, of course, need to be creative and show that either 1) storing the data puts you at necessary risk of identity theft and it is therefore unlawful or 2) the storage of said data without ongoing business is a clear cut invasion of privacy and your solitude . Hence the need to use privacy laws which are not well defined leaving a good lawyer breathing room to make the case happen.
I think it makes sense. Instead of spending tax dollars on something very few people (in contrast to the total number of taxpayers,) it's paid with by a per-use fee. If anything there's probably more tax-paid government services that could be handled this way.
You are correct. But I think you're overlooking people that would benefit from this. People like you and I that might be good with Google and interested in generic Federal Court history, Academics looking to study it and so forth.
An important obstacle to improving PACER is the court's myopic focus on the system's current users. A recent article in the federal courts' internal newsletter promised to "survey the courts, litigants, attorneys, the media, and bulk data collectors-the people who use PACER." Conspicuously absent from the list are academics, non-profit organizations, and members of the general public: groups that would benefit from a more open PACER but which are discouraged from participating by the paywall and primitive search tools.
While I agree that at first glance a select few need this service, I also recognize that there are a select few who would benefit greatly from removing the paywall. Now, we can't come up with cold hard numbers to monetarily weigh one group against the other and optimize our tax dollars. But we can all use tools like this Firefox extension to satisfy the tax payers and help out the academics and curious general public.
So, you could call them up and threaten them with prosecution under the aforementioned acts which--given the right tone of voice--should do the trick for you. Or, if you read the GAO report, they say:
In 1998, Congress made identity theft a federal crime when it enacted the
Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act).5 The
act made it a criminal offense for a person to "knowingly transfer, possess,
or use without lawful authority," another person's means of identification
"with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any
unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that
constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law." Under the
act, a name or SSN is considered a "means of identification," and a number
of cases have been prosecuted under this law.
Now, with that, I would seek a lawyer who would take this case (maybe even some high profile lawyer or a member of the EFF) and clearly outline the above in a written letter with your signature informing them that they are in violation of the "Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act)" and if they do not remove your Social Security Numbers, you will take legal action. If your case is solid enough, you might be able to really stick it to DirectTV for storing personal private data "without lawful authority" as they do not have the written consent of every customer.
I don't understand why there is a paywall in the first place. I thought all government records should be available for free through a FOIA request.
They probably are, but FOIA is a long and timely process. Surely for court documents that do not require any review before release, there could be an easier way? From PACER's FAQ:
Why are there user fees for PACER?
In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.
The fee is eight cents per page you wish to view. While I don't agree with this now, I could maybe see how in 1988 this nominal fee would be needed for the transfer of this data. Today, bandwidth is cheap for documents. Bring on the Firefox extension and public.resource.org hosting! I think they should allow a bidding contract with "free" being the only option... I'm guessing Google and Scribd and many others could make enough off the ads to host everything without blinking an eye. Hell, Google's doing it for patents, why not federal court documents?
What's also interesting about this plugin is that the site it uploads them to, public.resource.org, also runs audits and its CEO, Carl Malamud, sends that audit data back to the Clerk of the Court. The last page of that letter has transgressions by presiding judge!
Example:
Perhaps most shocking are items such as the list submitted by D.C. Attorney Ronald L. Drake who decided he wasn't being paid on time by the D.C. schools and thus raised his rates retroactively from $390/hour to $425/hour, submitting as evidence the names, home addresses, ages and social security numbers of 67 children.
I hope every judge in the District of Columbia knows about that. What's even more humorous is that Carl Malamud includes a hyperlink in that letter to FindLaw in case you wish to contact Mr. Drake.
And the response informs Malamud that it's taken care of with the SSNs redacted and the documents removed from public display. I wonder how long public.resource.org and Scribd have to demonstrate their usefulness before federal court documents are uploaded there by default in addition to being available through the court?
On a related note, I read in a Google blog that you can now release your works under Creative Commons on books.google.com and they happen to have Carl Malamud's A World's Fair for the Global Village available for download. And if you wish to release your works under the Creative Commons, Google will host them.
Whether or not you 'own' anything in a game or on a server is already defined on a per game or site basis. Slashdot says I own my comments. Star Wars Galaxies' Terms of Service says Sony owns my items and characters. I have an account but I don't 'own' the virtual things that Sony puts in the game.
The paper starts out with two real world analogies:
Imagine owning Fenway Park. You sell tickets to Red Sox games. These tickets allocate seats in Fenway to individual spectators. Some of these tickets are sold by the entire season â" guaranteeing the same seat to the buyer for each game of the season.
Season ticket holders are able to renew their purchase each year. Some have done so for years and years and years. Others have had their tickets passed down amongst family members. The tickets once owned by a
grandfather are now owned by the grandson.
These season ticket holders have put tremendous time and money into being able to sit in these same seats each year for each game. Should these fans be granted a property right in their seats?
If the people who sold them to you signed a contract saying you were building some sort of equity by buying those seats year after year, then you have that. That's not the case and they could probably drop your right to them for next year when they decide to resell everything in a lottery or auction. Tough luck for you if they get greedy. If you don't like it, stop buying Fenway Park tickets. Americans love to have a sense of undeserved entitlement and this is no different. Next analogy:
Now imagine living near a city park. You and a number of residents have taken it upon yourselves to help beautify the park. You plant grass, replenish flower gardens, and repair jungle gyms. The park is now a jewel in your city because of your effort.
The city, however, has decided to sell the land to a property developer. Despite your wishes, and the wishes of your friends who helped beautify the park, there is nothing you can do to stop the sale. Should you
have a property right in the park you spent so much time restoring?
Again, you don't have anything in writing so you're out of luck. If you didn't realize what you were doing to begin with, you're a moron. You didn't own the park in the first place and sprucing it up doesn't give you any ownership of it. Cleaning my neighbor's yard doesn't entitle me to it; cleaning public property doesn't entitle you to it. Get a petition or run for election to change things. You don't own it because you cleaned it. Unfortunate how things played out but there it is.
In World of Warcraft, I feel I 'own' Ampere on Thunderlord server but Blizzard's Terms of Use sets me straight:
Ownership.
All rights and title in and to the Service (including without limitation any user accounts, titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialogue, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, "applets" incorporated into the Game Client, transcripts of the chat rooms, character profile information, recordings of games played using the Game Client, and the Game Client and server software) are owned by Blizzard or its licensors. The Game and the Service are protected by United States and international laws, and may contain certain licensed materials in which Blizzard's licensors may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this Agreement.
(emphasis mine) I know I feel the right to him but Blizzard owns it. This has always been laid out for me and this paper is pointless in arguing for virtual property rights or against them. If you own them, they will say (like Slashdot). If you don't own them and you want to, find another game or site. I don't understand how the paper men
So it sounds like an 'opt-in' program for doing otherwise would be suicide by a mail provider. And since it's opt-in, I highly doubt the spammers will be doing the opting. So unless your penny is going to an anti-spam organization, how are you fighting Spam?
Also, I'm not too clear on how this would work. Wouldn't it require a certificate-like central authentication server? And wouldn't this increase in traffic just exacerbate the situation of too much traffic? Especially if all Spam starts to come with fake 'stamps.'
Now the children's minds will become corrupted by images of porn....and democracy.
Don't forget alternate viewpoints of history and historical events. Who was right, who was wrong and what exactly happened seem to be fairly touchy subjects with the Chinese government. Even current news -- like the Khmer Rouge trials -- needs a meticulously spun delivery to be worthy of public scrutiny in China. Nothing's wrong with that, I just hope the citizens have the right to read about the trial through other outlets like... say... Cambodia's.
If you're reading this, you're like me: you've never been wrong once in your life. Your average person isn't gonna know this because -- let's face it -- no shirt could hold all of the greatness of our beings so cut everyone else a slack if they don't know you. They're a big fat L7 and don't know how correct you always are.
But we've all been there, in that situation when a convo or situ goes south. You know what I'm talking about, you've just said something that is now correct (because you said it) but you're being presented with some "irrefutable" proof that it might have been incorrect before you said it. So here's how you deal with all the chumps that wanna waste their time disagreeing with you:
Maintain your stance, never faulter. Ex: "I said the evil organization in Contra is Red Eagle and that's because it is. I don't know where you dreamed up Red Falcon but it's Red Eagle." PROTIP: This is getting tough to do with iPhone's and that 3G shit. Leave quickly or comment on how stupid they look now if they start to pull out their phone.
Tell them it's changed since they last looked at it. Ex: "Yeah, well, I just checked the international standings yesterday and Usain Bolt is no longer the fastest man alive."
Fabricate further evidence supporting your claim. Ex: "Well, I had a beer with Steve Jobs last night and he told me personally that there was going to be an iPhone with a hologram display."
Just ignore them. You listen to the only person worth listening to: yourself.
Tell them they heard you wrong. Ex: "I never said Green Dam was going to be mandatory, I said it was going to be optional. Jesus, you totally got the wrong memo, dude."
Deny you ever said it or that it ever happened. This should be used as a last case scenario as pictures, recordings and "memories" often cause people to not like you. Ex: "Nah, brah, you're wrong. Tiananmen Square never happened. I don't know where you go that photoshopped image."
Remember, you're awesome and infallible. Never admit otherwise.
It's a good thing Bush & Cheney let me borrow their copy to provide this excerpt, I didn't have a plane ticket to go pick up the Chinese government's copy.
Once your identity is stolen, it doesn't matter what precautions the leaking company took or what their reputation is.
I disagree. I might not file suit against TJ Maxx if it was beyond their control to stop this from happening. If, on the other hand, poor unreasonable company policy allowed a low level employee to sell it on the black market, I would probably be interested in a class action lawsuit against the company for poor protection of privacy.
Real security is not measurable by reputation.
Unfortunately, for a lot of these things, reputation is all you have to judge. And nobody's walking down the street passing up shopping at TJ Maxx because of the credit card leak. Or selecting a retail clothing store based on their security reputation. These are discussions of problems with stores that are not in IT or a technology industry. If it's their primary job to protect my private financial data (i.e. paypal or online banking), you bet I'm going to seek action.
A smart crook with stolen state secrets or child porn on their encrypted drives would just tell 'em to fuck off.
Well, I can't comment on your claim of "respect" in jail as I've never been but Bennett's lengthy argument is more concerned with those of us that have -- say personal or financial data -- that we just don't want out in the open. Now, since I tell the police to "F off" they probably think that I've got state secrets or kiddie porn (like you just assumed). Which might not be true, I could just be exercising my rights.
So he tries to come up with a modest proposal and in short he suggests it be piggy backed on a popular product so everyone has it installed (meaning installation does not equal incrimination in the eyes of the jury) and also that it has no logs to tell if or when or where it's been run. Also it should be hard to tell that you have encrypted files and he also looks into Truecrypt's double key trick where one key gives you harmless data and only after applying the second one do you get the real stuff. So just give them one key and shrug.
An interesting proposition. Why doesn't he submit a suggestion for such a tool to be included with the Linux kernel or popular distro? Unlikely it'll happen and someone has to write it but since Linux has no fragmentation, it could maybe store headerless file information at the end of the filesystem that looks innocuous. Then give the user information on how much they can fill up before they destroy that data. I'm not a filesystem guy so I don't know how well that would work, just throwing out a suggestion. His requirements are definitely hard to meet.
While I hate RealNetworks and all it stands for, and will never forgive them for taking over online media with their crappy bloated players and codecs....I think I hate the movie industry just a little more. Especially Sony Pictures. I think the net effect (as usual) is that this sucks for consumers.
No, the net effect is that there is no possible way to exercise your right to a single backup of a DVD for your personal use. Despite the 2007 DVD Jukebox ruling, every DVD copying solution seems to be illegal. So what you do not realize when you're purchasing DVDs is that they are not only effectively DRM'd, they ignore your right to fair use.
I'm interested in watching RealNetwork's antitrust claims against the industry. I could think of some very basic arguments to be used in that case. Hell, I think someone should take up the case of fair use violations against them.
When I buy a DVD, I want to be able to create a backup that I use and store the DVD in safe keeping. If they don't want me to do this, distribute your films on a more robust media. This ruling is down right horrible for consumers.
Well, let's imagine that coverage of the country directly affects cost. This might not be so outlandish as cell phone towers need to be erected to cover area. I would venture to say that Americans & Canadians suffer from sprawl much more than Finland and total area of dense population is probably more than five times that of Finland's. So let's assume that those cell phone tower maintenance (more harsh weather conditions across the US than Finland also) and building costs are passed on to the consumer. The United States and Canada are are fourth and second (respectively) by country size. Which could explain their inflated costs.
Of course this isn't the only factor, for example: I would assume China's median household income would affect their cell phone charges and cause them to drop despite country size. Wish they had data on China and Russia so this could be analyzed further. I don't see any in the data about these countries... or even small rich countries like Morocco or Dubai.
'Speculate' is far too kind. 'Strange unwarranted conclusions' was all I found. Here's the conclusion:
Considering that I thought of all of this while playing Pac-Man... maybe sometimes our brains work most efficiently in a "lower gear."
And other great misunderstandings like:
Earlier in this blog, I noted that technology geeks gravitate towards games like D&D because they give people simple boundaries to storytelling, and straightforward challenges to overcome.
I must say I was not only confused but I was getting that feeling that I get when I see an episode of crossing over with John Edwards. You know, where a guy hits on a few truths and draws a bunch of conclusions from it that are crazy but people don't care because they want to believe it.
I don't think the things he notices hold any universal truth to them. I, personally, spent two years playing World of Warcraft while working a fairly complex job as a developer for a Fortune 500 company. And that game has the ability to be the most complex or mundane (take your pick) game you can play. And I did both things. From highly orchestrated (via vent) raids to mindless farming (hey, we needed Elemental Earths for those damned repair bots in the raids). And you know what? I enjoyed it all. And when I was doing simpler stuff in grade school and high school, I played Tetris. Tetris II, Tetris Worlds, Tetris Attack, you name it I played it. And that's mostly what I did. Pretty much the opposite of what he claims. Maybe I'm part of a different generation than he is but I could see myself playing either a complex or simple game. Right now, it's all about the entertainment factor and I'm currently looking at more complex MMOs like Darkfall Online and Mortal Online but at the same time I'm getting drunk with my friends playing Wii Sports or Rock Band.
This overly analytical opinion piece started with a huge problem and that's a terribly small sample set. So small that it fails to account for diverse gamers that are often playing multiple games at once--like my own anecdote.
While some of this may have apt parallels, one of them seems a bit of a stretch. And that's the old Western Vs Eastern card:
With Hollywood operating a fully-functioning, movie-making machine throughout the two World Wars, it wasn't until Asian cinema
blasted onto movie screens in the 1950s that we saw really poignant non-English cinema. Akira Kurosawa was perhaps the most influential of these Asian film makers, and his films Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress went on to influence a large number of film makers. However, Asian cinema still hasn't caught up to Hollywood in terms of overall, international popularity, and may never surpass the Los Angeles juggernaut.
However, the scenario is different when it comes to video games. Nintendo and Sony - and Sega for many years - have held a tight-fisted grip on the video game world⦠but not so with MMOs. Remarkably, MMO design and development has remained a very segregated sphere with very little crossover success occurring. Still, the MMO industry is beginning to feel the influence of our Asian allies quite significantly, and the buzz around this fall's upcoming release of Aion only proves this point.
The question still remains: Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed? I went to our experts to find out. Again, the answers were mixed and divisive along several lines of thought. Rather than preface their thoughts in any way, I'll just give you the ideas of the men, straight from their mouths.
I think a lot of the responses deflated this pretty well even though a few reinforced it. I've been torn apart on Slashdot for claiming Hollywood out performed other country's movie studios (like the USSR) so it'll be interesting to see the movie buffs here come out of the woodwork. The fact is that you can't judge a country's MMO successes based on its movie successes. Luckily most of this article doesn't attempt to do that but why ask, "Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed?" It doesn't make any sense to me. Compared to 95% of other countries, I find Japanese movies to be very successful. Same with their MMOs. I don't understand this parallel or the differences between MMOs here and MMOs there. WoW has obviously been very successful both in China and the US... and while Chinese studios may only have one per year debut in US theaters, they are successful in China. Confusing to compare across countries the movie/MMO success stories. Weakens the comparison of MMOs to movies in my book.
Reminds me of Jerry Springer: The Opera which was criticised for its liberal usage of obscene language it was actually quite entertaining. Twitter may reflect average intelligence in an embarrassing way but that should provide some amount of entertainment. Can you blame them for trying something new with an old "dead" art form that men comically dread being dragged to? At least give them credit for experimentation and trying new things. You know opera used to be about debauchery and shocking deaths and emotion... I guess they're just updating those things to the new heights we sometimes experience them as in modern times.
Not that I'm a Apple advocate, but Apple has had a far superior OS to Windows for the last 8 years, and they've barely dented the PC market. If OS X can't change the Windows mindset, Chrome sure as hell can't.
I really must object. This is a dangerous stance as I cannot say I've seen much more of Chrome OS than hype but let's imagine it's got really good hardware support and really good software support (tangible). Now let's also say that it's geared toward virtualization... which this cloud article leads me to believe. Now let's also assume that it works (as a virtualized instance) on every other operating system. Okay, so my problem with OSX is that I can't just download it and run it legally on whatever the hell I want. That's overcome. The other thing is that people are going to go looking for solutions to problems. If Chrome OS is that solution, they will be able to virtualize it, see that it works and probably make the switch if they want to. The whole preview first thing would be benefit since it's going to be open source.
Also, everyone can be encouraged to try it virtualized like any other application and get rid of it if they don't like it with no change to their system. Very appealing trial marketing here. Also, it's open source, OSX isn't.
There's a lot of differences I could continue to cite but I think you're mistaken in comparing it to OSX's failed attempt at desktop domination. You'd do better to compare it to Linux's failed attempt at the desktop... but then we're on to the corporate strong arm support Google is promising. Hardware and flash support would make a lot of people happy (as I posted earlier).
Chrome OS Designed To Start Microsoft Death Spiral
Hopefully that's not their primary goal. Remember, if your primary goal isn't to do something positive for the customer then it ain't gonna work.
Luckily I know that there's a bit more to Chrome OS than Microsoft death threats. It's a nice thought but... you've got a long way to go. You also need to consider that everyone is using something right now and you need to convince die hard Linux fans to leave their loyal distro of choice and follow you onward. That's just as important to success as targeting Windows, I would wager. Me, personally, would be impressed if you can get better hardware support and either work around Flash or pinch Adobe into supporting Flash on Linux. Those would be huge and I think would be highly decisive.
Also, I'm glad they didn't break this news six years ago when they started thinking about it... nobody wants another Duke Nukem or Hurd where we're perpetually waiting and cracking jokes about it.
What's really unfortunate is that he's one of the very few language maintainers out there that isn't of the mentality "Rah rah! My language/tool/design-philosophy/whatever is the solution to all your problems and will take over the world tomorrow."
Care to actually provide the names of those other language maintainers, with appropriate citations, that make such claims?
Very well. They don't out and out say that exact phrase but I'm sick of languages being marketed to me like an automobile. Here are a few after a bit of Googling. I don't really have time to dig more up:
Larry Wall of Perl: "Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the most readable one. " - From the Perl Man Pages
Yukihiro Matsumoto of Ruby: "Why should you switch to Ruby? If you are happy with Perl or Python, you don't have to. But if you do feel there must be a better language, Ruby may be your language of choice." and then "I believe people want to express themselves when they program. They don't want to fight with the language. Programming languages must feel natural to programmers." From an interview. It's hard not to roll my eyes when I hear about the latest flavor of the month. Ruby's marketed as 'the most natural.'
From Sun's about Java page they claim, "Write powerful and efficient applications for mobile phones, remote processors, low-cost consumer products, and practically any other device with a digital heartbeat." As one of their reasons developers choose Java.
I'm surprised you aren't sick of languages being marketed to you as silver bullets that can solve all your problems. That's really all I see these days. No more are people considering a multitude of languages to be a toolbox you use to solve all kinds of problems but instead you see languages like Java being marketed for inappropriate things. It's like the inventor of C#, Anders Hejlsberg said, "The dream is to have a single programming model." I just don't believe that's a realistic dream.
If I were in their shoes, I would explicitly say what the language is but also explicitly say what it is not. As someone who's tried to do video analysis in Java, I've been down the "should not" path and wasted my time.
I enjoyed the interview but I felt the initials of the participants were really unfortunate. DK and BS? I kept reading the whole thing as:
Donkey Kong: The specification of concepts has taken seven years. By contrast, the standardization of the entire STL took about half that time. What is so complicated about concepts?
Bull Shit! I count the concepts work as started in 2002! I presented my first design papers in 2003! In 1994 Alex Stepanov presented a complete implementation of the STL to Andrew Koenig and me, but 2002-to-2009 and 1994-to-1998 are not comparable time lines! Alex had been working on the STL from at least 1976!... etc.
What's really unfortunate is that he's one of the very few language maintainers out there that isn't of the mentality "Rah rah! My language/tool/design-philosophy/whatever is the solution to all your problems and will take over the world tomorrow." (phrase lifted from the interview) Wish we had more people like you out there, Stroustrup. Also, if this isn't fixed by now, I'm sorry Slashdot couldn't even get your name right in the title to this story.
Any guesses as to how many more people will start following "Cyxymu" solely because of this attack?
It's called The Streisand Effect, Russia, and it's very real.
Russia? How do you know it's Russia? I've read only the CNET article but my first thoughts were that if Cyxymu wanted to validate himself, he would organize this DDoS against himself. Assuming (s)he is a real person and not some puppet account set up by the region that wants independence that attacked itself to gain legitimacy. I mean, Russia and Georgia probably would have coordinated this with other attacks/raids on the poor soul if he existed, right? My theory is just as realistic as any other until we get more facts on who is claiming responsibility for this. How do you know that these attacks weren't carried out expecting the Streisand effect?
Just what we need, drug companies further muddling the waters so not even doctors can tell which treatments are useful or necessary. No wonder we see large movements away from things like vaccinations, which save lives. People are left with too many doubts and questions, fear doesn't lead to good decision making.
Do you think the operating system world is the only place where a war of words is fought by Microsoft to stay on top? Don't you see that this happens in every other field where dominant players refuse to fight fairly, refuse to let their products speak for themselves and refuse to innovate to stay alive? The market their product and they out market their competition. They're paying for ads in those medical journals, now they've found a new way to advertise.
Are you familiar with the third world being turned into a testing ground by companies like Pfizer where clinical trials aren't that important of a prerequisite? Their questionable ethics don't end there. Doping medical journals with fake studies to get your product to sell sell sell is nothing surprising. My older sister is a nurse and tells me that companies that sell medical supplies basically take the doctors out to get drunk and pay for them to go to conferences and boondoggles all so that the doctor recommends their product. Of course these multi-billion dollar companies are going to toe the line of ethics to keep their revenue source coming in.
And until someone steps up and really puts the hurt on those that get caught, everyone's going to keep doing it.
These people are marketers, they'll stop at nothing. Who cares about the dangers of Acetaminophen-Based Pain Killers, that's their revenue so they'll keep that on the market--Christ can we at least get a warning label not to mix them? The only place a code of ethics exists in big pharmaceuticals is in the bathroom stalls next to the diamond studded golden backscratchers where the CEO can whip their ass with it.
As you would expect, both of the Windows computers got 'slow', and the desktop stopped connecting to the internet completely for some reason. As I logged in remotely to 'fix' things...
Quick question, how did you log into his desktop remotely if it "stopped connecting to the internet completely for some reason?"
If all you did was reset the hosts file, it will be back sometime. Somewhere, probably in multiple places on that hard drive, is an executable waiting to be run. It's probably infected some inane looking routine Windows system file that occasionally runs and when that happens your host file will magically change again.
I could recommend you do a netstat but what's the point? Any botnet today would know how to elude that or run as part of a system routine. If the bot is serious enough, your best bet might be to save the data and just do a routine re-install. You know on my parent's WinXP machine, I do that everytime I'm home for christmas. Then I patch it as far as I can over their 56k modem.
Odds are high your dad's machine is still infected and I would also suspect your machine as being potentially compromised if you connected using Windows remote desktop. Call me overly cautious but I don't take chances with Windows.
You can run all the programs you want (Bothunter, Symantic, AVG, AdAware, etc.) but in the end there's no guarantee although BotHunter's probably your best bet.
The best thing to do is educate your dad. If he has a valid copy of Windows, spend time with him to show him how to go to IE and click Tools -> Update Windows then select all updates. Remind him periodically when you talk to him--especially if he does any banking or commerce online!
I agree 100%. I still don't understand why this charlatan...
Well, despite my overly critical initial post I will waste karma with further speculation on Kurzweil. He's actually not a charlatan. He's just stepping outside of his field and extrapolating out some of the things that have been achieved... and using some unrealistic exponential curve to guide his predictions.
The man has experience great success -- both in business and academia -- throughout his lifetime. But past 1990 he's made a few inventions to help learning and disabled students. Which is great. Unfortunately he's found that writing books, holding symposiums and giving speeches about fantastic science fiction is what draws attention and resources. So he keeps doing it. It results in a lot press and I'm sure his aging body might drive him to hope and fund a singularity before he dies.
While this singularity is a romantic idea, it's just not based on science. He's lost sight of what he once did musical hardware that advanced synthetic music far beyond the rate at which it normally would have run. And now his efforts are not designated to realistic goals but instead loftier goals that no one can achieve. What's worse is that it depends on crosses between fields he's simply not an expert in.
You might be able to argue that he's a charlatan now but in my mind he's Thomas Edison turned Nostradamus. He's pulled out all the stops that relegate normal scientists to the scientific process and has passed optimism onto fantastical dreams. He can write all the books he wants but until he gets back to what made him great -- actually implementing something and leaving a legacy of working examples -- he runs of the risk of tarnishing his reputation.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing in that quote suggests it is against the law for the company to retain the SSN in the course of lawful business, and as they are not intending to commit or aid or abet an unlawful activity, then your harshly worded letter would be meaningless.
So tell me, what are they intending to do with it? What he said of DirectTV:
... even if I were to discontinue service with them, they still intended to keep my full SSN on file indefinitely.
And so what do they intend to do with it? Your business with them is complete. Now the only reason they have to keep it is for the purposes of tracking you and privacy invasion.
Like I said in the original post, you'd need a good lawyer and you'd need a solid case. You would, of course, need to be creative and show that either 1) storing the data puts you at necessary risk of identity theft and it is therefore unlawful or 2) the storage of said data without ongoing business is a clear cut invasion of privacy and your solitude . Hence the need to use privacy laws which are not well defined leaving a good lawyer breathing room to make the case happen.
I think it makes sense. Instead of spending tax dollars on something very few people (in contrast to the total number of taxpayers,) it's paid with by a per-use fee. If anything there's probably more tax-paid government services that could be handled this way.
You are correct. But I think you're overlooking people that would benefit from this. People like you and I that might be good with Google and interested in generic Federal Court history, Academics looking to study it and so forth.
Check out this Ars Technica article from April entitled "The case against PACER: tearing down the courts' paywall", it says:
An important obstacle to improving PACER is the court's myopic focus on the system's current users. A recent article in the federal courts' internal newsletter promised to "survey the courts, litigants, attorneys, the media, and bulk data collectors-the people who use PACER." Conspicuously absent from the list are academics, non-profit organizations, and members of the general public: groups that would benefit from a more open PACER but which are discouraged from participating by the paywall and primitive search tools.
While I agree that at first glance a select few need this service, I also recognize that there are a select few who would benefit greatly from removing the paywall. Now, we can't come up with cold hard numbers to monetarily weigh one group against the other and optimize our tax dollars. But we can all use tools like this Firefox extension to satisfy the tax payers and help out the academics and curious general public.
So, you could call them up and threaten them with prosecution under the aforementioned acts which--given the right tone of voice--should do the trick for you. Or, if you read the GAO report, they say:
In 1998, Congress made identity theft a federal crime when it enacted the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act).5 The act made it a criminal offense for a person to "knowingly transfer, possess, or use without lawful authority," another person's means of identification "with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law." Under the act, a name or SSN is considered a "means of identification," and a number of cases have been prosecuted under this law.
Now, with that, I would seek a lawyer who would take this case (maybe even some high profile lawyer or a member of the EFF) and clearly outline the above in a written letter with your signature informing them that they are in violation of the "Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act (Identity Theft Act)" and if they do not remove your Social Security Numbers, you will take legal action. If your case is solid enough, you might be able to really stick it to DirectTV for storing personal private data "without lawful authority" as they do not have the written consent of every customer.
I don't understand why there is a paywall in the first place. I thought all government records should be available for free through a FOIA request.
They probably are, but FOIA is a long and timely process. Surely for court documents that do not require any review before release, there could be an easier way? From PACER's FAQ:
Why are there user fees for PACER?
In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.
The fee is eight cents per page you wish to view. While I don't agree with this now, I could maybe see how in 1988 this nominal fee would be needed for the transfer of this data. Today, bandwidth is cheap for documents. Bring on the Firefox extension and public.resource.org hosting! I think they should allow a bidding contract with "free" being the only option ... I'm guessing Google and Scribd and many others could make enough off the ads to host everything without blinking an eye. Hell, Google's doing it for patents, why not federal court documents?
Example:
Perhaps most shocking are items such as the list submitted by D.C. Attorney Ronald L. Drake who decided he wasn't being paid on time by the D.C. schools and thus raised his rates retroactively from $390/hour to $425/hour, submitting as evidence the names, home addresses, ages and social security numbers of 67 children.
I hope every judge in the District of Columbia knows about that. What's even more humorous is that Carl Malamud includes a hyperlink in that letter to FindLaw in case you wish to contact Mr. Drake.
And the response informs Malamud that it's taken care of with the SSNs redacted and the documents removed from public display. I wonder how long public.resource.org and Scribd have to demonstrate their usefulness before federal court documents are uploaded there by default in addition to being available through the court?
On a related note, I read in a Google blog that you can now release your works under Creative Commons on books.google.com and they happen to have Carl Malamud's A World's Fair for the Global Village available for download. And if you wish to release your works under the Creative Commons, Google will host them.
The paper starts out with two real world analogies:
Imagine owning Fenway Park. You sell tickets to Red Sox games. These tickets allocate seats in Fenway to individual spectators. Some of these tickets are sold by the entire season â" guaranteeing the same seat to the buyer for each game of the season.
Season ticket holders are able to renew their purchase each year. Some have done so for years and years and years. Others have had their tickets passed down amongst family members. The tickets once owned by a grandfather are now owned by the grandson.
These season ticket holders have put tremendous time and money into being able to sit in these same seats each year for each game. Should these fans be granted a property right in their seats?
If the people who sold them to you signed a contract saying you were building some sort of equity by buying those seats year after year, then you have that. That's not the case and they could probably drop your right to them for next year when they decide to resell everything in a lottery or auction. Tough luck for you if they get greedy. If you don't like it, stop buying Fenway Park tickets. Americans love to have a sense of undeserved entitlement and this is no different. Next analogy:
Now imagine living near a city park. You and a number of residents have taken it upon yourselves to help beautify the park. You plant grass, replenish flower gardens, and repair jungle gyms. The park is now a jewel in your city because of your effort.
The city, however, has decided to sell the land to a property developer. Despite your wishes, and the wishes of your friends who helped beautify the park, there is nothing you can do to stop the sale. Should you have a property right in the park you spent so much time restoring?
Again, you don't have anything in writing so you're out of luck. If you didn't realize what you were doing to begin with, you're a moron. You didn't own the park in the first place and sprucing it up doesn't give you any ownership of it. Cleaning my neighbor's yard doesn't entitle me to it; cleaning public property doesn't entitle you to it. Get a petition or run for election to change things. You don't own it because you cleaned it. Unfortunate how things played out but there it is.
In World of Warcraft, I feel I 'own' Ampere on Thunderlord server but Blizzard's Terms of Use sets me straight:
Ownership. All rights and title in and to the Service (including without limitation any user accounts, titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialogue, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, animations, sounds, musical compositions, audio-visual effects, methods of operation, moral rights, any related documentation, "applets" incorporated into the Game Client, transcripts of the chat rooms, character profile information, recordings of games played using the Game Client, and the Game Client and server software) are owned by Blizzard or its licensors. The Game and the Service are protected by United States and international laws, and may contain certain licensed materials in which Blizzard's licensors may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this Agreement.
(emphasis mine) I know I feel the right to him but Blizzard owns it. This has always been laid out for me and this paper is pointless in arguing for virtual property rights or against them. If you own them, they will say (like Slashdot). If you don't own them and you want to, find another game or site. I don't understand how the paper men
Do Good. Fight Spam.
So it sounds like an 'opt-in' program for doing otherwise would be suicide by a mail provider. And since it's opt-in, I highly doubt the spammers will be doing the opting. So unless your penny is going to an anti-spam organization, how are you fighting Spam?
Also, I'm not too clear on how this would work. Wouldn't it require a certificate-like central authentication server? And wouldn't this increase in traffic just exacerbate the situation of too much traffic? Especially if all Spam starts to come with fake 'stamps.'
Now the children's minds will become corrupted by images of porn....and democracy.
Don't forget alternate viewpoints of history and historical events. Who was right, who was wrong and what exactly happened seem to be fairly touchy subjects with the Chinese government. Even current news -- like the Khmer Rouge trials -- needs a meticulously spun delivery to be worthy of public scrutiny in China. Nothing's wrong with that, I just hope the citizens have the right to read about the trial through other outlets like ... say ... Cambodia's.
Section 82: Never Being Wrong
If you're reading this, you're like me: you've never been wrong once in your life. Your average person isn't gonna know this because -- let's face it -- no shirt could hold all of the greatness of our beings so cut everyone else a slack if they don't know you. They're a big fat L7 and don't know how correct you always are.
But we've all been there, in that situation when a convo or situ goes south. You know what I'm talking about, you've just said something that is now correct (because you said it) but you're being presented with some "irrefutable" proof that it might have been incorrect before you said it. So here's how you deal with all the chumps that wanna waste their time disagreeing with you:
Remember, you're awesome and infallible. Never admit otherwise.
It's a good thing Bush & Cheney let me borrow their copy to provide this excerpt, I didn't have a plane ticket to go pick up the Chinese government's copy.
Once your identity is stolen, it doesn't matter what precautions the leaking company took or what their reputation is.
I disagree. I might not file suit against TJ Maxx if it was beyond their control to stop this from happening. If, on the other hand, poor unreasonable company policy allowed a low level employee to sell it on the black market, I would probably be interested in a class action lawsuit against the company for poor protection of privacy.
Real security is not measurable by reputation.
Unfortunately, for a lot of these things, reputation is all you have to judge. And nobody's walking down the street passing up shopping at TJ Maxx because of the credit card leak. Or selecting a retail clothing store based on their security reputation. These are discussions of problems with stores that are not in IT or a technology industry. If it's their primary job to protect my private financial data (i.e. paypal or online banking), you bet I'm going to seek action.
A smart crook with stolen state secrets or child porn on their encrypted drives would just tell 'em to fuck off.
Well, I can't comment on your claim of "respect" in jail as I've never been but Bennett's lengthy argument is more concerned with those of us that have -- say personal or financial data -- that we just don't want out in the open. Now, since I tell the police to "F off" they probably think that I've got state secrets or kiddie porn (like you just assumed). Which might not be true, I could just be exercising my rights.
So he tries to come up with a modest proposal and in short he suggests it be piggy backed on a popular product so everyone has it installed (meaning installation does not equal incrimination in the eyes of the jury) and also that it has no logs to tell if or when or where it's been run. Also it should be hard to tell that you have encrypted files and he also looks into Truecrypt's double key trick where one key gives you harmless data and only after applying the second one do you get the real stuff. So just give them one key and shrug.
An interesting proposition. Why doesn't he submit a suggestion for such a tool to be included with the Linux kernel or popular distro? Unlikely it'll happen and someone has to write it but since Linux has no fragmentation, it could maybe store headerless file information at the end of the filesystem that looks innocuous. Then give the user information on how much they can fill up before they destroy that data. I'm not a filesystem guy so I don't know how well that would work, just throwing out a suggestion. His requirements are definitely hard to meet.
While I hate RealNetworks and all it stands for, and will never forgive them for taking over online media with their crappy bloated players and codecs....I think I hate the movie industry just a little more. Especially Sony Pictures. I think the net effect (as usual) is that this sucks for consumers.
No, the net effect is that there is no possible way to exercise your right to a single backup of a DVD for your personal use. Despite the 2007 DVD Jukebox ruling, every DVD copying solution seems to be illegal. So what you do not realize when you're purchasing DVDs is that they are not only effectively DRM'd, they ignore your right to fair use.
I'm interested in watching RealNetwork's antitrust claims against the industry. I could think of some very basic arguments to be used in that case. Hell, I think someone should take up the case of fair use violations against them.
When I buy a DVD, I want to be able to create a backup that I use and store the DVD in safe keeping. If they don't want me to do this, distribute your films on a more robust media. This ruling is down right horrible for consumers.
Well, let's imagine that coverage of the country directly affects cost. This might not be so outlandish as cell phone towers need to be erected to cover area. I would venture to say that Americans & Canadians suffer from sprawl much more than Finland and total area of dense population is probably more than five times that of Finland's. So let's assume that those cell phone tower maintenance (more harsh weather conditions across the US than Finland also) and building costs are passed on to the consumer. The United States and Canada are are fourth and second (respectively) by country size. Which could explain their inflated costs.
... or even small rich countries like Morocco or Dubai.
Of course this isn't the only factor, for example: I would assume China's median household income would affect their cell phone charges and cause them to drop despite country size. Wish they had data on China and Russia so this could be analyzed further. I don't see any in the data about these countries
The author then goes on to speculate ...
'Speculate' is far too kind. 'Strange unwarranted conclusions' was all I found. Here's the conclusion:
Considering that I thought of all of this while playing Pac-Man ... maybe sometimes our brains work most efficiently in a "lower gear."
And other great misunderstandings like:
Earlier in this blog, I noted that technology geeks gravitate towards games like D&D because they give people simple boundaries to storytelling, and straightforward challenges to overcome.
I must say I was not only confused but I was getting that feeling that I get when I see an episode of crossing over with John Edwards. You know, where a guy hits on a few truths and draws a bunch of conclusions from it that are crazy but people don't care because they want to believe it.
I don't think the things he notices hold any universal truth to them. I, personally, spent two years playing World of Warcraft while working a fairly complex job as a developer for a Fortune 500 company. And that game has the ability to be the most complex or mundane (take your pick) game you can play. And I did both things. From highly orchestrated (via vent) raids to mindless farming (hey, we needed Elemental Earths for those damned repair bots in the raids). And you know what? I enjoyed it all. And when I was doing simpler stuff in grade school and high school, I played Tetris. Tetris II, Tetris Worlds, Tetris Attack, you name it I played it. And that's mostly what I did. Pretty much the opposite of what he claims. Maybe I'm part of a different generation than he is but I could see myself playing either a complex or simple game. Right now, it's all about the entertainment factor and I'm currently looking at more complex MMOs like Darkfall Online and Mortal Online but at the same time I'm getting drunk with my friends playing Wii Sports or Rock Band.
This overly analytical opinion piece started with a huge problem and that's a terribly small sample set. So small that it fails to account for diverse gamers that are often playing multiple games at once--like my own anecdote.
With Hollywood operating a fully-functioning, movie-making machine throughout the two World Wars, it wasn't until Asian cinema blasted onto movie screens in the 1950s that we saw really poignant non-English cinema. Akira Kurosawa was perhaps the most influential of these Asian film makers, and his films Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress went on to influence a large number of film makers. However, Asian cinema still hasn't caught up to Hollywood in terms of overall, international popularity, and may never surpass the Los Angeles juggernaut.
However, the scenario is different when it comes to video games. Nintendo and Sony - and Sega for many years - have held a tight-fisted grip on the video game world⦠but not so with MMOs. Remarkably, MMO design and development has remained a very segregated sphere with very little crossover success occurring. Still, the MMO industry is beginning to feel the influence of our Asian allies quite significantly, and the buzz around this fall's upcoming release of Aion only proves this point.
The question still remains: Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed? I went to our experts to find out. Again, the answers were mixed and divisive along several lines of thought. Rather than preface their thoughts in any way, I'll just give you the ideas of the men, straight from their mouths.
I think a lot of the responses deflated this pretty well even though a few reinforced it. I've been torn apart on Slashdot for claiming Hollywood out performed other country's movie studios (like the USSR) so it'll be interesting to see the movie buffs here come out of the woodwork. The fact is that you can't judge a country's MMO successes based on its movie successes. Luckily most of this article doesn't attempt to do that but why ask, "Will Asian MMOs ever succeed where their film brethren have failed?" It doesn't make any sense to me. Compared to 95% of other countries, I find Japanese movies to be very successful. Same with their MMOs. I don't understand this parallel or the differences between MMOs here and MMOs there. WoW has obviously been very successful both in China and the US ... and while Chinese studios may only have one per year debut in US theaters, they are successful in China. Confusing to compare across countries the movie/MMO success stories. Weakens the comparison of MMOs to movies in my book.
Reminds me of Jerry Springer: The Opera which was criticised for its liberal usage of obscene language it was actually quite entertaining. Twitter may reflect average intelligence in an embarrassing way but that should provide some amount of entertainment. Can you blame them for trying something new with an old "dead" art form that men comically dread being dragged to? At least give them credit for experimentation and trying new things. You know opera used to be about debauchery and shocking deaths and emotion ... I guess they're just updating those things to the new heights we sometimes experience them as in modern times.
Maybe this will become the Urban Dictionary of the nerd world?
Not that I'm a Apple advocate, but Apple has had a far superior OS to Windows for the last 8 years, and they've barely dented the PC market. If OS X can't change the Windows mindset, Chrome sure as hell can't.
I really must object. This is a dangerous stance as I cannot say I've seen much more of Chrome OS than hype but let's imagine it's got really good hardware support and really good software support (tangible). Now let's also say that it's geared toward virtualization ... which this cloud article leads me to believe. Now let's also assume that it works (as a virtualized instance) on every other operating system. Okay, so my problem with OSX is that I can't just download it and run it legally on whatever the hell I want. That's overcome. The other thing is that people are going to go looking for solutions to problems. If Chrome OS is that solution, they will be able to virtualize it, see that it works and probably make the switch if they want to. The whole preview first thing would be benefit since it's going to be open source.
... but then we're on to the corporate strong arm support Google is promising. Hardware and flash support would make a lot of people happy (as I posted earlier).
Also, everyone can be encouraged to try it virtualized like any other application and get rid of it if they don't like it with no change to their system. Very appealing trial marketing here. Also, it's open source, OSX isn't.
There's a lot of differences I could continue to cite but I think you're mistaken in comparing it to OSX's failed attempt at desktop domination. You'd do better to compare it to Linux's failed attempt at the desktop
Chrome OS Designed To Start Microsoft Death Spiral
Hopefully that's not their primary goal. Remember, if your primary goal isn't to do something positive for the customer then it ain't gonna work.
... you've got a long way to go. You also need to consider that everyone is using something right now and you need to convince die hard Linux fans to leave their loyal distro of choice and follow you onward. That's just as important to success as targeting Windows, I would wager. Me, personally, would be impressed if you can get better hardware support and either work around Flash or pinch Adobe into supporting Flash on Linux. Those would be huge and I think would be highly decisive.
... nobody wants another Duke Nukem or Hurd where we're perpetually waiting and cracking jokes about it.
Luckily I know that there's a bit more to Chrome OS than Microsoft death threats. It's a nice thought but
Also, I'm glad they didn't break this news six years ago when they started thinking about it
What's really unfortunate is that he's one of the very few language maintainers out there that isn't of the mentality "Rah rah! My language/tool/design-philosophy/whatever is the solution to all your problems and will take over the world tomorrow."
Care to actually provide the names of those other language maintainers, with appropriate citations, that make such claims?
Very well. They don't out and out say that exact phrase but I'm sick of languages being marketed to me like an automobile. Here are a few after a bit of Googling. I don't really have time to dig more up:
Larry Wall of Perl: "Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the most readable one. " - From the Perl Man Pages
Yukihiro Matsumoto of Ruby: "Why should you switch to Ruby? If you are happy with Perl or Python, you don't have to. But if you do feel there must be a better language, Ruby may be your language of choice." and then "I believe people want to express themselves when they program. They don't want to fight with the language. Programming languages must feel natural to programmers." From an interview. It's hard not to roll my eyes when I hear about the latest flavor of the month. Ruby's marketed as 'the most natural.'
From Sun's about Java page they claim, "Write powerful and efficient applications for mobile phones, remote processors, low-cost consumer products, and practically any other device with a digital heartbeat." As one of their reasons developers choose Java.
I'm surprised you aren't sick of languages being marketed to you as silver bullets that can solve all your problems. That's really all I see these days. No more are people considering a multitude of languages to be a toolbox you use to solve all kinds of problems but instead you see languages like Java being marketed for inappropriate things. It's like the inventor of C#, Anders Hejlsberg said, "The dream is to have a single programming model." I just don't believe that's a realistic dream.
If I were in their shoes, I would explicitly say what the language is but also explicitly say what it is not. As someone who's tried to do video analysis in Java, I've been down the "should not" path and wasted my time.
Donkey Kong: The specification of concepts has taken seven years. By contrast, the standardization of the entire STL took about half that time. What is so complicated about concepts?
... etc.
Bull Shit! I count the concepts work as started in 2002! I presented my first design papers in 2003! In 1994 Alex Stepanov presented a complete implementation of the STL to Andrew Koenig and me, but 2002-to-2009 and 1994-to-1998 are not comparable time lines! Alex had been working on the STL from at least 1976!
What's really unfortunate is that he's one of the very few language maintainers out there that isn't of the mentality "Rah rah! My language/tool/design-philosophy/whatever is the solution to all your problems and will take over the world tomorrow." (phrase lifted from the interview) Wish we had more people like you out there, Stroustrup. Also, if this isn't fixed by now, I'm sorry Slashdot couldn't even get your name right in the title to this story.
Any guesses as to how many more people will start following "Cyxymu" solely because of this attack? It's called The Streisand Effect, Russia, and it's very real.
Russia? How do you know it's Russia? I've read only the CNET article but my first thoughts were that if Cyxymu wanted to validate himself, he would organize this DDoS against himself. Assuming (s)he is a real person and not some puppet account set up by the region that wants independence that attacked itself to gain legitimacy. I mean, Russia and Georgia probably would have coordinated this with other attacks/raids on the poor soul if he existed, right? My theory is just as realistic as any other until we get more facts on who is claiming responsibility for this. How do you know that these attacks weren't carried out expecting the Streisand effect?
Just what we need, drug companies further muddling the waters so not even doctors can tell which treatments are useful or necessary. No wonder we see large movements away from things like vaccinations, which save lives. People are left with too many doubts and questions, fear doesn't lead to good decision making.
Do you think the operating system world is the only place where a war of words is fought by Microsoft to stay on top? Don't you see that this happens in every other field where dominant players refuse to fight fairly, refuse to let their products speak for themselves and refuse to innovate to stay alive? The market their product and they out market their competition. They're paying for ads in those medical journals, now they've found a new way to advertise.
Are you familiar with the third world being turned into a testing ground by companies like Pfizer where clinical trials aren't that important of a prerequisite? Their questionable ethics don't end there. Doping medical journals with fake studies to get your product to sell sell sell is nothing surprising. My older sister is a nurse and tells me that companies that sell medical supplies basically take the doctors out to get drunk and pay for them to go to conferences and boondoggles all so that the doctor recommends their product. Of course these multi-billion dollar companies are going to toe the line of ethics to keep their revenue source coming in.
And until someone steps up and really puts the hurt on those that get caught, everyone's going to keep doing it.
These people are marketers, they'll stop at nothing. Who cares about the dangers of Acetaminophen-Based Pain Killers, that's their revenue so they'll keep that on the market--Christ can we at least get a warning label not to mix them? The only place a code of ethics exists in big pharmaceuticals is in the bathroom stalls next to the diamond studded golden backscratchers where the CEO can whip their ass with it.
As you would expect, both of the Windows computers got 'slow', and the desktop stopped connecting to the internet completely for some reason. As I logged in remotely to 'fix' things ...
Quick question, how did you log into his desktop remotely if it "stopped connecting to the internet completely for some reason?"
If all you did was reset the hosts file, it will be back sometime. Somewhere, probably in multiple places on that hard drive, is an executable waiting to be run. It's probably infected some inane looking routine Windows system file that occasionally runs and when that happens your host file will magically change again.
I could recommend you do a netstat but what's the point? Any botnet today would know how to elude that or run as part of a system routine. If the bot is serious enough, your best bet might be to save the data and just do a routine re-install. You know on my parent's WinXP machine, I do that everytime I'm home for christmas. Then I patch it as far as I can over their 56k modem.
Odds are high your dad's machine is still infected and I would also suspect your machine as being potentially compromised if you connected using Windows remote desktop. Call me overly cautious but I don't take chances with Windows.
You can run all the programs you want (Bothunter, Symantic, AVG, AdAware, etc.) but in the end there's no guarantee although BotHunter's probably your best bet.
The best thing to do is educate your dad. If he has a valid copy of Windows, spend time with him to show him how to go to IE and click Tools -> Update Windows then select all updates. Remind him periodically when you talk to him--especially if he does any banking or commerce online!
I agree 100%. I still don't understand why this charlatan ...
Well, despite my overly critical initial post I will waste karma with further speculation on Kurzweil. He's actually not a charlatan. He's just stepping outside of his field and extrapolating out some of the things that have been achieved ... and using some unrealistic exponential curve to guide his predictions.
The man has experience great success -- both in business and academia -- throughout his lifetime. But past 1990 he's made a few inventions to help learning and disabled students. Which is great. Unfortunately he's found that writing books, holding symposiums and giving speeches about fantastic science fiction is what draws attention and resources. So he keeps doing it. It results in a lot press and I'm sure his aging body might drive him to hope and fund a singularity before he dies.
While this singularity is a romantic idea, it's just not based on science. He's lost sight of what he once did musical hardware that advanced synthetic music far beyond the rate at which it normally would have run. And now his efforts are not designated to realistic goals but instead loftier goals that no one can achieve. What's worse is that it depends on crosses between fields he's simply not an expert in.
You might be able to argue that he's a charlatan now but in my mind he's Thomas Edison turned Nostradamus. He's pulled out all the stops that relegate normal scientists to the scientific process and has passed optimism onto fantastical dreams. He can write all the books he wants but until he gets back to what made him great -- actually implementing something and leaving a legacy of working examples -- he runs of the risk of tarnishing his reputation.