Yep, I see no reason why fame achieved through holding elected office should afford any further special privileges. Courts have previously decided that you can't steal someone else's domain just because you are more famous and they beat you to it. Just check nissan.com for an example - you might think that would be Nissan Motors' USA site, but you'd be wrong.
Is he the only one in America (or elsewhere, since he's trying to involve the UN) named Ron Paul, and did he lay claim to the domain a decade or so ago when it was available? No, and no. So to him I say piss off, you stereotypical politician, sorry about your luck. No wait... I don't really give a rat's ass, because I'm a libertarian and it makes no difference to me.
And not even regular government intervention, he has gone to the UN! Isn't he the same type of guy who says we should handle our own business ourselves, rather than trust an organization that exists to place limits on our national sovereignty? I see talk of irony, but this is more like pathetic hypocrisy than irony.
Sorry Ron, but you are really beginning to look like just another angry, wealthy, old man. If somebody got something in a perfectly legal manner, by thinking of it first, you should either pay their price for it or fuck off, because it isn't yours. Isn't that the conservative libertarian way? Seems like he's becoming a whiny crank looking for a hand-out, claiming entitlement to something of value which other people worked for.
And, THIS JUST IN: Ron Paul Supports Expanded Obamacare, Forced Abortions, and Hillary in 2016.
lol the cool factor, and giant otterboxes. I have a Samsung T679/Exhibit 4g at the moment (Nexus 4 soon), overclocked and with a custom build of Cyanogenmod 10, of course. For a low-mid range phone, it is quite nice except for the camera I never use. But for the life of me, I can not find a case that makes it as square and bulky as the iPhones all my coworkers have! I also can't figure out how to kill the battery as fast. It lasts all day, every day.
In regards to the browser, it is easy to fix: download firefox. I switched from Firefox to Chrome on real computers about a year ago, but Firefox is easily the best Android browser I've found. I don't really care for the stock SMS app either, but thankfully there are tons of choices.
And if you're worried about Google tracking you can I assume you never used Siri or anything Apple gives out?
I agree. But dude, iPhones are SoOo kewl!!! I mean, you can put a huge red case on it, or you can put a huge pink case (just like mine!) on it, and it even does Facebook! You've GOT to have one if you are cool. You do want to be cool, don't you? Samsung doesn't even have a cool logo like Apple, duh. And yeah, taxes, or guverment or whatever, and I wouldn't vote for taxing slaves.
Fortunately this situation is not a problem since it is in Appalachia, as when a guy there talks about his "WiFi" it merely means his spouse is back on the methamphetamine. That does not interfere with telescopes or modern electronic devices, unless she gets too high and disassembles them.
Governments hate anonymity and payments they can't track, and they are just itching for excuses like "drugs" and "child pornography" to push through regulations to outlaw efforts like bitcoin and tor.
Very true. There are legitimate concerns beyond those though, like tax evasion, to name one. History has proven that many folks, especially the rich ones with a lot at stake, will go to great lengths to avoid paying the tax man his share. Surely no one reports earnings paid in bitcoins to the IRS or other appropriate taxing authority. And that means more people/corporate entities will continue to consider using bitcoins.
Aside from taxes, drugs, and kiddie pron, there's also the fact that national governments reserve the right to regulate the currency trade in general, as well as security concerns that stem from the complete dearth of regulation. If you argue that bitcoins can not be regulated by governments because they are not currency, then do you really have recourse if someone raids your wallet? Murky, heady stuff that has surely slowed adoption. For all the buzz, the actual community of bitcoin miners, buyers, and spenders is still very tiny.
That's why they use TOR, bitcoins (including tumbling, i.e. laundering), open/public wifi, and USPS no-signature delivery, and (for the geeks) live, no hard disk operating systems - plausible deniability. It is difficult to connect all the dots and cross all the t's, in the "beyond a reasonable doubt" legal sense. If you just liked weed or something and reside where the war on drugs is still being conducted, using a site like SR with care probably beats meeting shady, potentially gun-toting, meth addicted drug dealers in person.
Technology to the rescue, even for the dopers... well, at least the ones who aren't too high all the time to figger out all da crazy computa shitz. Oh hell, they probably forget to do things right anyway. Seems like a lot of them are getting away with everything though.
Well, THERE YA GO! If you have drugs sent to you FROM OUTSIDE YOUR COUNTRY, you are risking your own freedom right there. The packages can be X-rayed, flagged due to point of origin, may come open due to mishandling or poor packaging, could be opened by someone other than the intended recipient (delivery to wrong address, interception by a family member, whatever) and can be opened by a postmaster or law enforcement under some other circumstances. Small, domestic packages are probably pretty secure in most countries, but customs officials have a lot of power to open shit and know what to look for. And of course signing for something is acknowledgement that you are expecting it and accept that it is yours.
Here in the USA at least, there is such a high volume of small parcels going through the postal system that it would probably be very, very easy to send drugs in the mail. We also have fairly robust legal protection, in that it is difficult for law enforcement to inspect packages and it is not automatically assumed that things sent to your mailbox were requested. You'd still be putting yourself at risk no matter what of course, but how many packages actually break open in transit? In my opinion, the biggest risks with illicit SR sales might involve sales to minors and parental interception.
Chances are Silk Road is crawling with cops. But they are not focused on catching buyers or occasional sellers, but are more focused on catching the bigger distributors. Probably they don't even cite Silk as their principal source when prosecuting. Hard to prove much of anything on the internet to a jury, easier to trot in some Joe Undercover cop and have him explain a (probably at least half truthful) account of how he came to know about those deals, without mentioning that first info came via silk.
Hmm, I don't know about this. Surely the US Dept. of Justice has taken an interest, but how do they go about busting people? I have heard of zero high-profile, SR-related busts. The big sellers are the professional ones - they deliver what they promise (ensures repeat sales, good reviews, and more sales), they use stealthy packaging, they avoid leaving fingerprints, they ship carefully (multiple locations, away from home, etc.), and they tumble their bitcoins to make them really, really tough to trace. I suppose the law men could be exploiting an unknown vulnerability in SR (and they surely look for them), but for now that site looks pretty successful. If some SR big fish got busted, even offline, word should get back to the site, no?
I'm more interested in the privacy, security, and freedom implications than the drugz, but this is all very interesting stuff, since most all other forms of communication and money transfer are much more susceptible to snooping by Big Brother.
Hmm, I don't know what to make of this. Honestly, 13.7% for weed seems low, considering it is easily the most popular illicit drug, and that is far, far from a majority percentage. That it is the most popularly listed type of item (are those stats for listings, many of which may not sell, or actual sales?) does not surprise me. It may be a "soft" drug but is still illegal almost everywhere. Add to that the notion that a lot of weed consumers are not hard drug users, and probably don't enjoy dealing with "drug dealers" face to face, and it is only surprising that weed doesn't truly dominate the listings.
Without knowing whether the above numbers reflect sales or listings (probably the latter), and how many listings result in multiple sales, it is hard to make anything of those stats. It is my understanding that one listing can account for numerous sales, while new, no-rep sellers can list tons of stuff without actually selling anything. How would you get actual sales stats from a secretive site like that, anyway?
And oh yeah, while there are probably a few legit items there, it looks like the vast majority of the site consists of illegal drugs. Intriguing stuff due to the Silk Road's success (and even its continued existence), but very, very shady.
Final thought: while this sort of thing brings bad publicity to the Bitcoin world, it illustrates the strength of an alternative, "crypto currency," (not my term, I hate it) as there are surely a lot of people who would like to shut down both but have been unable to impact either.
Maybe that was a very poor attempt at humor, but I think you have the wrong onion. We're not talking about the rarely-clever fake news site, The Onion, but TOR (The Onion Router) hidden services. TOR essentially uses a series of proxies and randomization to obfuscate identities and locations. It isn't perfect, but it is fairly effective.
Samsung laptops do NOT become bricks if booted via UEFI. Have you seen the things? Pavers or facade stones maybe, but I sure wouldn't build a wall or a nice barbecue with something that thin!
I'm about 6 months in with SImple Mobile, and it has been perfectly fine so far. I bought my SM SIM for about a dollar on eBay, for use with an unlocked Android phone. I've had no trouble, and can tether to my laptop (only done it a few times, but it works in a pinch). $40/month is pretty darned good if you get decent T-Mobile service where you need it, which I do. HSPA+ (T-Mobile's so-called 4G, or 3.5G) is plenty fast for me at the moment, though I rarely exceed a few hundred MB of data in a month. I would check out any smaller, local or regional carriers too, but Simple, Straight Talk, and T-Mobile all have prepaid services that are much cheaper than any big-carrier monthly billed plan. You might find something better if you just need a good texting plan.
Gotta love Slashdot. Its hatred is for Apple runs so deep, there are many here who would rather children be forced into labor than admit that Apple does something non-evil, or even (dare one say it!) something *good*.
Did they fire the company when they caught them with only 6 child laborers? THAT would have been doing something non-evil. They're not looking harder for illegal labor practices now because it is the right thing to do, they're doing it to cover their own asses because other people caught them using contractors who break every rule imaginable.
And dislike for Apple predates Slashdot for a lot of us. Chronically malfunctioning Apple II floppy drives were enough to turn me against his highness Jobs back in the 80's.
After conducting its 2011 audits to 339 sites, the company found that cases of underage labor had jumped from 6 to 74 in one year.
So when they only got caught using children 6 times before that, presumably in 2010, that was okay? Disgusting. I wonder what the real number was, since even shady Chinese companies know better than to use child labor (or allow themselves to be observed using children, rather) when contracting with foreign companies.
Know well the numbers associated with child labor, Chinese factory managers. The limit of children you can get caught with is somewhere between 6 and 74, apparently.
Can you like get a mini parasitic phone that comes like pre-bedazzled? If I can get a sparkly one that works with my iPhone then I'm like, you know, like sooo in. What about an even smaller one for my min-pin-chin-tzu (you've like GOT to get a custom four-breed tiny dog) to carry around on her collar? lol that would be like soooo cute.
Yo, I've got something that will blow your mind: a phone that stays at your house and can't go anywhere. It get amazing reception, and call quality and dropped calls are never really an issue. Pretty soon every teenager is going to want one. These things are BAD, and can be really big. Big is the new small, know what I'm saying? How come nobody ever thought of a phone before that is JUST a phone and doesn't play Angry Birds? And you'll never ever crack the screen. No giant Otterbox necessary (besides, it is already so big it doesn't need a box to make it huge, like an iPhone). Bonus: you'll never forget it or have it stolen at Starbucks, cause you can't use it there.
General Motors, Diageo, Walmart, ConAgra, ExxonMobil, Monsanto, and the government of Queensland could all possibly buy RIM, too. So what? They all seem unlikely, as does Lenovo.
First, Lego didn't design Jabba's Palace. I'm pretty sure that was under LucasArts' realm.
But repeating a mistake just because you weren't the first one to come up with it does not mean you're in the clear. Ask any mom when her kid does something dumb and his defense was that he was just following his friend's lead. (You also can't sell cocaine and get off by saying you didn't grow or refine it.) That said, I agree that there was no wrongdoing here to begin with.
This objection is silly because Jabba's Palace and the Hagia Sophia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia ) don't look much alike at all, other than having a dome, in which case they'd better prepare for a lot more outrage when they start to see other photos of the outside world...
Um, yeah, we already know that! Why do you think the Astrodome and Pontiac Silverdome were abandoned by their respective NFL teams? Because the NFL wants to attract Muslim fans and those stadiums were more offensive than all the new-fangled retractable domes! Why else would Montreal's beloved Expos leave Canada? I'm sure it was because of that blasphemous stadium and had nothing to do with poor attendance or the fact that the building was falling apart. Praise ala, for the Astros, Twins, Vikings, Seahawks, and Mariners have become being racially sensitive, too. Perhaps the Rams, Saints and Rays (formerly the DEVIL Rays!) will see the light one day.
If you go back farther than that (a lot farther), you can say that EVERYONE is of African descent. So that means my honky Zionist ass is African-European-American, which means I'm a racial, ethnic, and religious minority in the global community. So everyone can fuck off with the racism allegations and stereotypes. We're all human but all different in some ways, deal with it.
BTW, 1776 was a long time ago. The USA is no longer a European colony.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, I see no reason why fame achieved through holding elected office should afford any further special privileges. Courts have previously decided that you can't steal someone else's domain just because you are more famous and they beat you to it. Just check nissan.com for an example - you might think that would be Nissan Motors' USA site, but you'd be wrong.
Is he the only one in America (or elsewhere, since he's trying to involve the UN) named Ron Paul, and did he lay claim to the domain a decade or so ago when it was available? No, and no. So to him I say piss off, you stereotypical politician, sorry about your luck. No wait... I don't really give a rat's ass, because I'm a libertarian and it makes no difference to me.
And not even regular government intervention, he has gone to the UN! Isn't he the same type of guy who says we should handle our own business ourselves, rather than trust an organization that exists to place limits on our national sovereignty? I see talk of irony, but this is more like pathetic hypocrisy than irony.
Sorry Ron, but you are really beginning to look like just another angry, wealthy, old man. If somebody got something in a perfectly legal manner, by thinking of it first, you should either pay their price for it or fuck off, because it isn't yours. Isn't that the conservative libertarian way? Seems like he's becoming a whiny crank looking for a hand-out, claiming entitlement to something of value which other people worked for.
And, THIS JUST IN: Ron Paul Supports Expanded Obamacare, Forced Abortions, and Hillary in 2016.
lol the cool factor, and giant otterboxes. I have a Samsung T679/Exhibit 4g at the moment (Nexus 4 soon), overclocked and with a custom build of Cyanogenmod 10, of course. For a low-mid range phone, it is quite nice except for the camera I never use. But for the life of me, I can not find a case that makes it as square and bulky as the iPhones all my coworkers have! I also can't figure out how to kill the battery as fast. It lasts all day, every day.
In regards to the browser, it is easy to fix: download firefox. I switched from Firefox to Chrome on real computers about a year ago, but Firefox is easily the best Android browser I've found. I don't really care for the stock SMS app either, but thankfully there are tons of choices.
And if you're worried about Google tracking you can I assume you never used Siri or anything Apple gives out?
Or a micro-SD card slot.
I agree. But dude, iPhones are SoOo kewl!!! I mean, you can put a huge red case on it, or you can put a huge pink case (just like mine!) on it, and it even does Facebook! You've GOT to have one if you are cool. You do want to be cool, don't you? Samsung doesn't even have a cool logo like Apple, duh. And yeah, taxes, or guverment or whatever, and I wouldn't vote for taxing slaves.
Fortunately this situation is not a problem since it is in Appalachia, as when a guy there talks about his "WiFi" it merely means his spouse is back on the methamphetamine. That does not interfere with telescopes or modern electronic devices, unless she gets too high and disassembles them.
Governments hate anonymity and payments they can't track, and they are just itching for excuses like "drugs" and "child pornography" to push through regulations to outlaw efforts like bitcoin and tor.
Very true. There are legitimate concerns beyond those though, like tax evasion, to name one. History has proven that many folks, especially the rich ones with a lot at stake, will go to great lengths to avoid paying the tax man his share. Surely no one reports earnings paid in bitcoins to the IRS or other appropriate taxing authority. And that means more people/corporate entities will continue to consider using bitcoins.
Aside from taxes, drugs, and kiddie pron, there's also the fact that national governments reserve the right to regulate the currency trade in general, as well as security concerns that stem from the complete dearth of regulation. If you argue that bitcoins can not be regulated by governments because they are not currency, then do you really have recourse if someone raids your wallet? Murky, heady stuff that has surely slowed adoption. For all the buzz, the actual community of bitcoin miners, buyers, and spenders is still very tiny.
That's why they use TOR, bitcoins (including tumbling, i.e. laundering), open/public wifi, and USPS no-signature delivery, and (for the geeks) live, no hard disk operating systems - plausible deniability. It is difficult to connect all the dots and cross all the t's, in the "beyond a reasonable doubt" legal sense. If you just liked weed or something and reside where the war on drugs is still being conducted, using a site like SR with care probably beats meeting shady, potentially gun-toting, meth addicted drug dealers in person.
Technology to the rescue, even for the dopers... well, at least the ones who aren't too high all the time to figger out all da crazy computa shitz. Oh hell, they probably forget to do things right anyway. Seems like a lot of them are getting away with everything though.
Well, THERE YA GO! If you have drugs sent to you FROM OUTSIDE YOUR COUNTRY, you are risking your own freedom right there. The packages can be X-rayed, flagged due to point of origin, may come open due to mishandling or poor packaging, could be opened by someone other than the intended recipient (delivery to wrong address, interception by a family member, whatever) and can be opened by a postmaster or law enforcement under some other circumstances. Small, domestic packages are probably pretty secure in most countries, but customs officials have a lot of power to open shit and know what to look for. And of course signing for something is acknowledgement that you are expecting it and accept that it is yours.
Here in the USA at least, there is such a high volume of small parcels going through the postal system that it would probably be very, very easy to send drugs in the mail. We also have fairly robust legal protection, in that it is difficult for law enforcement to inspect packages and it is not automatically assumed that things sent to your mailbox were requested. You'd still be putting yourself at risk no matter what of course, but how many packages actually break open in transit? In my opinion, the biggest risks with illicit SR sales might involve sales to minors and parental interception.
Chances are Silk Road is crawling with cops. But they are not focused on catching buyers or occasional sellers, but are more focused on catching the bigger distributors. Probably they don't even cite Silk as their principal source when prosecuting. Hard to prove much of anything on the internet to a jury, easier to trot in some Joe Undercover cop and have him explain a (probably at least half truthful) account of how he came to know about those deals, without mentioning that first info came via silk.
Hmm, I don't know about this. Surely the US Dept. of Justice has taken an interest, but how do they go about busting people? I have heard of zero high-profile, SR-related busts. The big sellers are the professional ones - they deliver what they promise (ensures repeat sales, good reviews, and more sales), they use stealthy packaging, they avoid leaving fingerprints, they ship carefully (multiple locations, away from home, etc.), and they tumble their bitcoins to make them really, really tough to trace. I suppose the law men could be exploiting an unknown vulnerability in SR (and they surely look for them), but for now that site looks pretty successful. If some SR big fish got busted, even offline, word should get back to the site, no?
I'm more interested in the privacy, security, and freedom implications than the drugz, but this is all very interesting stuff, since most all other forms of communication and money transfer are much more susceptible to snooping by Big Brother.
Hmm, I don't know what to make of this. Honestly, 13.7% for weed seems low, considering it is easily the most popular illicit drug, and that is far, far from a majority percentage. That it is the most popularly listed type of item (are those stats for listings, many of which may not sell, or actual sales?) does not surprise me. It may be a "soft" drug but is still illegal almost everywhere. Add to that the notion that a lot of weed consumers are not hard drug users, and probably don't enjoy dealing with "drug dealers" face to face, and it is only surprising that weed doesn't truly dominate the listings.
Without knowing whether the above numbers reflect sales or listings (probably the latter), and how many listings result in multiple sales, it is hard to make anything of those stats. It is my understanding that one listing can account for numerous sales, while new, no-rep sellers can list tons of stuff without actually selling anything. How would you get actual sales stats from a secretive site like that, anyway?
And oh yeah, while there are probably a few legit items there, it looks like the vast majority of the site consists of illegal drugs. Intriguing stuff due to the Silk Road's success (and even its continued existence), but very, very shady.
Final thought: while this sort of thing brings bad publicity to the Bitcoin world, it illustrates the strength of an alternative, "crypto currency," (not my term, I hate it) as there are surely a lot of people who would like to shut down both but have been unable to impact either.
Maybe that was a very poor attempt at humor, but I think you have the wrong onion. We're not talking about the rarely-clever fake news site, The Onion, but TOR (The Onion Router) hidden services. TOR essentially uses a series of proxies and randomization to obfuscate identities and locations. It isn't perfect, but it is fairly effective.
Samsung laptops do NOT become bricks if booted via UEFI. Have you seen the things? Pavers or facade stones maybe, but I sure wouldn't build a wall or a nice barbecue with something that thin!
The correspondence of Alfred Russel Wallace has gone online for the first time.
I just saw Doug Flutie talking to him on the sideline at the Pro Bowl. Who knew he was so versatile.
I'm about 6 months in with SImple Mobile, and it has been perfectly fine so far. I bought my SM SIM for about a dollar on eBay, for use with an unlocked Android phone. I've had no trouble, and can tether to my laptop (only done it a few times, but it works in a pinch). $40/month is pretty darned good if you get decent T-Mobile service where you need it, which I do. HSPA+ (T-Mobile's so-called 4G, or 3.5G) is plenty fast for me at the moment, though I rarely exceed a few hundred MB of data in a month. I would check out any smaller, local or regional carriers too, but Simple, Straight Talk, and T-Mobile all have prepaid services that are much cheaper than any big-carrier monthly billed plan. You might find something better if you just need a good texting plan.
Gotta love Slashdot. Its hatred is for Apple runs so deep, there are many here who would rather children be forced into labor than admit that Apple does something non-evil, or even (dare one say it!) something *good*.
Did they fire the company when they caught them with only 6 child laborers? THAT would have been doing something non-evil. They're not looking harder for illegal labor practices now because it is the right thing to do, they're doing it to cover their own asses because other people caught them using contractors who break every rule imaginable.
And dislike for Apple predates Slashdot for a lot of us. Chronically malfunctioning Apple II floppy drives were enough to turn me against his highness Jobs back in the 80's.
After conducting its 2011 audits to 339 sites, the company found that cases of underage labor had jumped from 6 to 74 in one year.
So when they only got caught using children 6 times before that, presumably in 2010, that was okay? Disgusting. I wonder what the real number was, since even shady Chinese companies know better than to use child labor (or allow themselves to be observed using children, rather) when contracting with foreign companies.
Know well the numbers associated with child labor, Chinese factory managers. The limit of children you can get caught with is somewhere between 6 and 74, apparently.
Can you like get a mini parasitic phone that comes like pre-bedazzled? If I can get a sparkly one that works with my iPhone then I'm like, you know, like sooo in. What about an even smaller one for my min-pin-chin-tzu (you've like GOT to get a custom four-breed tiny dog) to carry around on her collar? lol that would be like soooo cute.
Yo, I've got something that will blow your mind: a phone that stays at your house and can't go anywhere. It get amazing reception, and call quality and dropped calls are never really an issue. Pretty soon every teenager is going to want one. These things are BAD, and can be really big. Big is the new small, know what I'm saying? How come nobody ever thought of a phone before that is JUST a phone and doesn't play Angry Birds? And you'll never ever crack the screen. No giant Otterbox necessary (besides, it is already so big it doesn't need a box to make it huge, like an iPhone). Bonus: you'll never forget it or have it stolen at Starbucks, cause you can't use it there.
General Motors, Diageo, Walmart, ConAgra, ExxonMobil, Monsanto, and the government of Queensland could all possibly buy RIM, too. So what? They all seem unlikely, as does Lenovo.
First, Lego didn't design Jabba's Palace. I'm pretty sure that was under LucasArts' realm.
But repeating a mistake just because you weren't the first one to come up with it does not mean you're in the clear. Ask any mom when her kid does something dumb and his defense was that he was just following his friend's lead. (You also can't sell cocaine and get off by saying you didn't grow or refine it.) That said, I agree that there was no wrongdoing here to begin with.
This objection is silly because Jabba's Palace and the Hagia Sophia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia ) don't look much alike at all, other than having a dome, in which case they'd better prepare for a lot more outrage when they start to see other photos of the outside world...
Um, yeah, we already know that! Why do you think the Astrodome and Pontiac Silverdome were abandoned by their respective NFL teams? Because the NFL wants to attract Muslim fans and those stadiums were more offensive than all the new-fangled retractable domes! Why else would Montreal's beloved Expos leave Canada? I'm sure it was because of that blasphemous stadium and had nothing to do with poor attendance or the fact that the building was falling apart. Praise ala, for the Astros, Twins, Vikings, Seahawks, and Mariners have become being racially sensitive, too. Perhaps the Rams, Saints and Rays (formerly the DEVIL Rays!) will see the light one day.
If you go back farther than that (a lot farther), you can say that EVERYONE is of African descent. So that means my honky Zionist ass is African-European-American, which means I'm a racial, ethnic, and religious minority in the global community. So everyone can fuck off with the racism allegations and stereotypes. We're all human but all different in some ways, deal with it.
BTW, 1776 was a long time ago. The USA is no longer a European colony.