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User: Mr2001

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  1. Re:Encrypted disks Was:Back in the courtroom on WEP Broken Even Worse · · Score: 1

    How does that free space thing actually work? If you tried to completely fill the "free space" would it error before the space was full or would it overwrite the hidden encrypted data? If you mounted the volume using only the main password, TrueCrypt would be unaware that there's a hidden volume, and it'd happily let you overwrite the hidden encrypted data. So if you turn over the main key to someone, they won't be able to read or detect your hidden data, but they will be able to destroy it - either accidentally or intentionally, based on the (unprovable) suspicion that you might have a hidden volume.

    Optionally, you can mount it using both passwords, and in that case it'll recognize the hidden volume and prevent that space from being overwritten. You'd get a device-level write error when you tried to write to the end of the main volume.
  2. Re:its a freaking game!!! on FBI Examines Second Life Casinos · · Score: 1

    If you are a compulsive gambler, its arguable whether or not you freely accepted the risks, because its arguable whether you had actual capacity to refrain. Well, you still made the initial choice to start gambling, and you chose not to get help when you recognized you had a problem. You can't walk through a casino without seeing information about Gamblers Anonymous at every turn.

    There's a concept called the "eggshell skull rule" which basically says that if your actions harm someone, you're responsible even if you couldn't predict the extent of the harm based on what you knew at the time - e.g. if you slap someone in the head, not knowing that his skull is as brittle as an eggshell, you're in trouble even though the slap wouldn't have harmed an average person.

    Now, suppose we extend that a little. If you're prone to compulsive gambling, but you don't know it yet, and you go into a casino, play those first few hands, get hooked, and five years down the line your kids are starving... aren't you still ultimately responsible for that harm? The compulsion was in your head all along, and getting it treated is your responsibility; it wasn't put there by the casino or the cards. You lost control somewhere in the middle, but it all began with a choice you made of your own free will.

    preventing general social harm is the point of criminal law, which is why criminal prosecutions are conducted in the name of the state, not the purportedly injured party. This is also why many criminal laws criminalize, and seek thereby to discourage, behavior to which harm to uninvolved third parties frequently (or perhaps even less frequently, where the harm is serious) results, even if it is not part of the essence of the act. Indeed. However, the vast majority of gambling does not result in harm to third parties, and the vast majority of people are not compulsive gamblers. The harm, while it might be serious, is quite rare, and in order to preserve the freedom of everyone else, it's best dealt with by identifying compulsive gamblers and getting them help, rather than criminalizing gambling altogether. We've all seen plenty of evidence that prohibition only makes things worse.
  3. Re:Could some explain how one places a bet? on FBI Examines Second Life Casinos · · Score: 1

    Now my set of conditionals still holds.
    1) if the output of a machine is money
                2) if the input of the machine was money
                    3) if there is a call to a random number generator inside the machine
    it is gambling.

    If linden imposed such a test how woul dthis break second life? I don't think the problem is that it would break SL. The problem is that this test is impossible to enforce. For example:

    1. Player puts money into Machine A.
    2. Machine A sends an activation signal to Machine B.
    3. Machine B rolls a random number and transmits it to Machine C.
    4. Machine C determines the payout amount and gives it to the player.

    A human can analyze the code easily enough and figure out what's going on, but an automated system couldn't really do it - especially when you consider that in a world with virtual physics, machines can communicate through physical interactions (dropping rocks on each other) rather than easily traced scripting calls.
  4. Re:its a freaking game!!! on FBI Examines Second Life Casinos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That it is not "worse" than other things which may have victims but are not crimes does not establish that it is a victimless crime. It may be useful as part of an argument that it, despite not being victimless, ought not to be a crime, but you'd need more than you've presented to make that argument. Typically, for the purposes of deciding whether an act is a "victimless crime", we ignore the person committing the act, on the principle that the kind of "victims" we're concerned about are unwilling, innocent victims.

    In that context it's easy to see that gambling is indeed victimless. If I go to a casino and play a hand of blackjack, who's the victim? Not me; I committed the act with full knowledge of the possible consequences and willingly accepted them. Not the casino; they're playing willingly, under mutually agreed rules which are, in fact, tilted in their favor. There is no one else affected by the act, so we can conclude that it's victimless.

    Now, some proponents of the idea that gambling has a victim might bring up extreme scenarios: "What if you spend all your money at the casino and you can't buy food for your kids? Aren't they victims?" But of course in that scenario, the reason you don't have any money is because you chose to spend it all, not because the casino made you give it to them. You could just as easily have spent it all on comic books, stocks, gym memberships, vacation timeshares, or Pez dispensers from eBay, with exactly the same outcome... the children in that scenario are victims of your reckless spending, not of gambling.
  5. Re:Could some explain how one places a bet? on FBI Examines Second Life Casinos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm unfamiliar with SL scripting, but from my MUSH days I suspect it goes more like this:

    1. Person A inserts fixed amount of money into a machine.
    2. Machine rolls a random number and determines the payout.
    3. Machine returns an amount of money to the player. ...where there is no "escrow" step at which Big Brother can examine the entire transaction and see if it looks like gambling. There are just individual payments: money goes in, stuff happens, and later money comes out.

  6. Re:its a freaking game!!! on FBI Examines Second Life Casinos · · Score: 1

    Correct. They have simply allowed people to harm themselves, which is far less of a law enforcement priority in the minds of reasonable people.

  7. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    So a baby concieved in rape is no less human than a baby conceived in love. Indeed. And an amorphous blob with no thoughts, no feelings, no memories, and which no one has ever interacted with is no more human than a tumor. Being human is about more than just having human DNA.

    Tell me: if you found yourself in a fertility clinic which was on fire, moments from collapsing and killing everyone inside, and you had to choose between saving the life of a single adult worker or an entire rack of 100 embryos, which would you save?

    Your view that murder is preferable to spending 36 weeks pregnant is disgusting. Likewise, I'm sure you won't be surprised that I'm equally disgusted by your view that a clump of cells with no mind is worth forcing a woman to give up the use of her body for 36 weeks, and also disgusted that you'd cheapen the horrible act of murder by comparing it to a medical procedure which has saved thousands of lives, relationships, and human futures.
  8. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    To clarify... the IUD has a failure rate of 0.6% per year with perfect use. Tubal ligation, 0.5%. Depo Provera, 0.3%.

    Those are among the best of any form of contraception, but they still aren't perfect: 0.3% means three out of every thousand women will become pregnant every year, even if they do everything right.

  9. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    Punishment ? If someone has to suffer from your actions, then it most certainly should be you and not some innocent bystander. A parasite is hardly an innocent bystander, even if it didn't choose to be there. It's still infringing your rights.

    Look, even if you deliberately attacked the violinist, causing him to fall into a coma, only a lunatic would conclude that you should be forced to sustain him from your own flesh.

    And the question of whether a fetus is "someone" as opposed to "something" is still unresolved. Indeed. The purpose of this scenario is to show that even if that question were resolved in the way the pro-lifers would prefer, abortion can still be justified, because even a "someone" is not inherently entitled to everything it needs to survive, especially when that can only be obtained by leeching it out of a particular person's body.

    As for the taxpayers, if they think they're unfairly burdened by having to pay for such medical treatment, they can always elect representatives who will change the laws so that they don't have to, or perhaps move to another country or something. Likewise, if the citizens think that a person's right to control the contents of her own body is less important than a fetus's right to leech nutrients out of it, they can always elect representatives who will amend the constitution.
  10. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    None of those are 100% effective, and IUDs and tubal ligations are pretty hard to get if you're young and don't have any kids. Try again?

  11. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    actually, there are several forms of birth control that are 100% effective (beyond just the option of not having sex). Its a myth that they aren't. Oh, really? I think that might come as news to Planned Parenthood and other medical experts. Care to explain further?

    Of course, even if contraception were perfectly effective, that still wouldn't prevent rape.
  12. Re:I'm thinking about... on U.S. Airlines to Offer In-Air Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little hyperbole - but when you use "5 hours" and "10 minutes" in the same sentence to describe the same flight, it just doesn't work.

  13. Re:Encrypted disks Was:Back in the courtroom on WEP Broken Even Worse · · Score: 1

    If the defendant handed over the keys then the entire purpose of the encrypted FS would be defeated. Not if he's using a good encryption system. TrueCrypt, for example, lets you create hidden subvolumes, which can't even be detected unless you know the password. Situations like this, where someone notices that you have an encrypted partition and forces you to turn over the key, are exactly what that feature was designed for.

    You give them the main key, and they find a partition containing some porn, financial records, or whatever. The partition size is correct; they can read every sector of it. The free space will appear to be filled with random bytes, but that's a standard feature of TrueCrypt whenever it creates a new volume. Meanwhile, your real secret data is hiding right under their noses - those random bytes are actually encrypted data, but without the key, no one can tell the difference.
  14. Absolutely. on BitTorrent Inc. Introduces Ad-Supported Downloads · · Score: 1

    The great thing about Sellaband's approach is that it focuses on the part of the equation that really is scarce and valuable: the artist's time and talent. You can easily copy an MP3 file, so it's hard to get people to pay for one.. but you can't copy an artist's time. If you want him to record a song for you, you have to pay him. There's no way around it (unless you kidnap him and force him into slavery, I guess).

    However, their model could still use some improvements. For example, they currently set the same price for every artist ($50,000), and they use that money solely to fund the production of an album. The artists don't get a penny of it; they have to rely on ad revenue.

    What if, instead, an artist could set his own price and use the money however he wants? Let's say you're a guy with a laptop and a guitar, and you have no desire to sell CDs or go to a studio for professional recording, you just have some ideas for a few songs. Why not charge only a few hundred bucks (which would be held in escrow), record and mix the songs yourself, upload the MP3s when you're done, and then pocket the money? You'd be directly selling your labor, giving yourself a guaranteed income instead of hoping for ad revenue that may never materialize.

  15. Re:sweet on U.S. Airlines to Offer In-Air Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    The fact that hardly anyone has two wifi cards in the same laptop.

  16. Re:I'm thinking about... on U.S. Airlines to Offer In-Air Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    Sure does, that's not particularly comfortable. I don't want to have to stick shit in my ears for 5 hours because you can't shut the **** up for 10 consecutive minutes. So, uh, you're suggesting he take 10 minute breaks between phone calls? Or do you think his flight is only 10 minutes long while yours, on the same plane, is 5 hours long?
  17. Re:Sweet... just what I need... on U.S. Airlines to Offer In-Air Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    I bet a kid from the 70's that got the belt accross her ass wouldn't do that again... No, she'd just grow up to be a stripper. Physical abuse has a funny way of doing that.
  18. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    The difference between this and abortion is, of course, that you are innocent of the situation - the violinist is dependent on you through no fault of your own. The fetus, on the other hand, is there because you had sex with no adequate protection. No form of contraception is perfect, and rape still happens, so it is quite possible to become pregnant through no fault of your own. Many anti-abortion folks are willing to grant an exception for rape, but they can't seem to explain how that's compatibile with their stated concern for the fetus's rights.

    It may be unreasonable to except you to burden yourself on some complete strangers behalf, but is it unreasonable to ask you to suffer the consequences of your own actions rather than make someone else (the fetus, if it is human, which still remains the question) suffer them ? Ah, so you're arguing for "pro-life as punishment". I'm afraid that's still unreasonable.

    Just think about where this line of argument might take you. If you break your leg while skiing, is it reasonable to deny you proper medical treatment, so that you have to have the leg amputated or even bleed to death, simply because the broken leg is the consequence of your own actions and your insurer, or the local taxpayers, think it's unfair that they should have to suffer those consequences instead of you?

    So no, this thought experiment doesn't really parallel abortion, especially since a pregnant woman doesn't have to remain in bed for 9 months. Staying in bed wasn't a condition of the violinist experiment. Who says you can't drag him around on a cart? Pregnant women do have to deal with significant physical impairment and discomfort, so it's still a reasonable parallel.
  19. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1
    So, I assume you've heard the "violinist" thought experiment, which is what I based my Steve Ballmer scenario on. If not, here's a description:

    Judith Jarvis Thomson provided one of the most striking and effective thought experiments in the moral realm. Her example is aimed at a popular anti-abortion argument that goes something like this: The fetus is an innocent person with a right to life. Abortion results in the death of a fetus. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong. In her thought experiment we are asked to imagine a famous violinist falling into a coma. The society of music lovers determines from medical records that you and you alone can save the violinist's life by being hooked up to him for nine months. The music lovers break into your home while you are asleep and hook the unconscious (and unknowing, hence innocent) violinist to you. You may want to unhook him, but you are then faced with this argument put forward by the music lovers: The violinist is an innocent person with a right to life. Unhooking him will result in his death. Therefore, unhooking him is morally wrong.
            However, the argument does not seem convincing in this case. You would be very generous to remain attached and in bed for nine months, but you are not morally obliged to do so. The parallel with the abortion case is evident. The thought experiment is effective in distinguishing two concepts that had previously been run together: "right to life" and "right to what is needed to sustain life." The fetus and the violinist may each have the former, but it is not evident that either has the latter. The upshot is that even if the fetus has a right to life (which Thompson does not believe but allows for the sake of the argument), it may still be morally permissible to abort. Would you argue that the violinist does, in fact, have the right to stay connected to your body, despite any suffering he may cause you?

    Finally... why on earth would you allow an exception for rape? If you're really so concerned about the rights of the fetus, and you won't disregard them because of the pain and suffering it's putting the poor woman through, why would you let a rapist's actions override them instead?
  20. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    You generally have rights over your body. But there is no such thing as an "absolute right". Where your 'absolute right' comes into conflict with another person's 'absolute right', one of them must give way. Yup, and in the case of a host and an unwanted parasite, the parasite's rights must give way--presuming it has any in the first place. Pretty simple.

    Now, a weird example. Suppose you go to a museum and steal and eat a very valuable ring from a display case. A guard says he saw you do it. Would the police be justified in X-raying your body without your consent? Could they administer an emetic? I'm fairly certain they could not, but of course, they wouldn't have to. What they would actually do, provided that they have good enough reason to suspect you, is to hold you for a week or two, strip search you, and closely examine everything that's in your feces.

    Well, so much for the absolute right over the contents of your body. What, are you suggesting that my feces is "the contents of my body" even after it's been, er, passed out of my body? That's ridiculous. You're just reinforcing my point.
  21. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    If its just a lump of cells who cares what you do, there is no point in discussing it.

    If its life than we have to start asking difficult questions like what right superceededs the other? you being pregnant for nine months or your the unborn babies (were assuming its a human life) right to not be executed? That's not really a difficult question. My right to control the contents of my body supersedes any conflicting rights that any other entities may have, period. If something is inside me, and it can't live once it's removed, too bad for it.

    Nor do people have the right to kill other people, see the problem again its all about what is inside of the woman. You dont have the right to steal my car, however I dont have the right to shoot you in the back because you stole my car. What are you trying to prove here? You don't have the right to shoot anyone in the back, pretty much ever, and in any case shooting a thief isn't the only way to solve the problem of your car being stolen (nor a particularly effective one). OTOH, you do have the right to control the contents of your body, and removing the fetus is the only way to solve the problem of having a fetus inside you.

    Sometimes when two rights conflict you have to ask which is more fundimental? life (e.g. not to be executed at the whim of another), or not to be pregnant even though you got yourself there. Ah, what a perfect world it would be if humans could only get pregnant when they chose to. Unfortunately, we live in a world where contraception isn't perfect, and where rape and incest still exist.

    Now, you might say "abortion is OK in cases of rape, because she didn't 'get herself there'", but then you have to ask yourself: if you value the fetus's rights so much, why are you willing to throw them away based on a rapist's actions?
  22. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    so then you would be for a law which bans abortion but guarentees a woman the right to a c section when the baby is mature enough to survive on its own (say 36 weeks?). After all I have just provided you with a way to get the baby out on a set time table no matter what the beby wants. Nope, 36 weeks of suffering is unacceptable. If you can cut that down to two weeks, you have my support.
  23. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    Whether abortion is or is not wrong, this argument is ridiculous. Actually, it's quite famous.

    The fetus didn't "set up camp" inside anyone; it was formed there as a direct result of its parents actions and had no say in the matter. The circumstances of its arrival may be unfortunate, but they're still irrelevant, because the end result is the same. You have a fetus, which may or may not be a person, acting as parasite to someone who most definitely is a person, causing its host pain and discomfort, and posing significant health risks. Either you believe the host should have control over her body or you do not.

    If Ballmer ended up inside you as a direct result of your actions, why would you have the right to kill him for the sake of your convenience ? Because I, like anyone else, have the absolute right to control the contents of my body. If you can think of a way to get him out without killing him, then I'm all for it, but so far our only options are to leave him there until he decides to move out, or detach him and let him die. Ballmer couldn't take my kidney to sustain himself, so why should he be allowed to live in my abdomen, leech my nutrients, and excrete his waste inside me?

    The only open question in the abortion issue is whether a mass of cells which is fetus should be considered and granted the same rights as a post-birth human being. Not at all. One side thinks a mass of cells should be granted more rights than a born human being--unless they're also arguing that all born people should be allowed to live off the bodies of others, which I don't think they are.
  24. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 1

    What if you woke up one morning to find yourself inside Steve Ballmer? Then he would have the right to evict me, period. If that couldn't be done without harming me, then that would suck for me, I guess - but it's better than forcing him to host me like a parasite.
  25. Re:Nine old guys (and gals) on SCOTUS Says EPA Can Regulate Carbon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What do you know about someone else's body inside yours? It is a different set of DNA. All you really need to know is that it's inside your body and you don't want it there. DNA doesn't enter into it at all; the whole argument of whether a fetus is a separate person is irrelevant, because even people don't have the right to set up camp inside other people.

    If you woke up one morning and found Steve Ballmer living inside your body, throwing your organs around and sucking nutrients out of your blood, would you be morally obligated to let him keep living there until he decided to come out on his own?