Actually, reading the bill, it seems less drastic than the introduction above implies -- it doesn't require the ISP to store everything, just details of the user and their allocated IP address...
A statistical probability that there isn't an even distribution of ignorance?
Actually, that is precisely the point of unionised voting - something that, historically, regularly put the Labour party in to power & kept them there in the UK.
The principle is that, whatever your knowledge of the candidates, your vote is directed according to your Union, which gives the Union power, and hence a say in the running of the nation. In this fashion, coal miners, teachers and so on were able to have a surprisingly large voice, via the combined might of the trade unions.
Of course, it is also one of the reasons why Thatcher's "breaking of the Unions" was a significant piece of UK political history, as it took a long time for Labour to regroup when their power base was weakened.
So, when answering the original question, "should you vote if you know nothing about either candidate," you have to who consider not only whether the voter is attempting to put in a candidate on the basis of their stated policies, in which case ignorance can be misleading, but also whether they may be achieving a voice from directed voting, as ignorance plays no part there...
Unless they can digitally digitally enhance the acting too, it seems more likely that the "upgrade" is simply going to remove character from the show...
Fascism is also typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizing) the means of production. Fascism exalts the nation, state, or race as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, often to the point of a cult of personality.
Rather a good description of the home team, too, it seems...
Given the fact that this guy is a national security threat
Of course, this is all backwards. The US should be encouraging civilians to attempt to hack in to their systems; after all, how else are the weaknesses to be exposed and resolved?
Consider, if you will... a foreign nation decides to attack the US. They might well start with a pre-emptive missile strike, but the consequences would be most unpleasant -- no, you would precede that strike by attacking the US defence network: the more disharmony you can cause there, the more likely you are to effectively make the attack.
Accordingly, I find it disconcerting that the US Government is concentrating on deflecting attention away from the real problem (inadequate security) rather than dealing with it. Don't you want to know that your Defence systems are as secure from attack? How can you unless you test it properly?
Perhaps there is even more to it than that. In the sinister world of real people playing unreal games [ie, power tripping] having banned CmdrTaco and forced a name change, it would be simple to unban it and take it over himself, then masquerade as the original.
Lo and behind, virtual identity theft. And not a thing you can do about it...
That's a very interesting definition, with an interesting lack of respect for boundaries: whilst uninforcable outside of the US, it has implications for web pages that bear facsimile of the seal that are read in the US.
Of course, it also uses the phrase 'reasonably calculated' which, being related to the subjective views of 'the common man' is apparently what the Onion's lawyers will say obviates their exposure.
It is an interesting approach for that ultimate piece of spyware - by which I mean, it starts out as a quite, unassuming media file lister that allows to to check your computer is legal: not entirely a bad idea.
But as usage takes off, and new versions of the program are released, the sophistication will improve. Soon, it will auto-update off the internet, and one of those releases will include an upload...
After all, you did agree to that end user license for the original version, didn't you?
Ho hum.
Actually, this is not new: and not even impractical.
The technology is available to produce a high resolution recording of the key strokes from a considerable distance, provided there is a glass window on a room. Laser technology is used to pick up the vibrations from the glass as a resolution that will astound.
Even if you are aware that you are being evesdropped and attempt to obfuscate the sound by using shift or caps locks keys, be aware that the key makes sounds both on being depressed and released - and the better the keyboard, the more defined [hence identifiable] the clicks are!
I've done some cryptography in my day, and can tell you that the probability of identifying they keys associated with their sounds goes up very quickly, provided the listener can make a couple of basic assumptions: language being the most basic, though awareness of non-standard keyboard layout would be another [US/UK keyboards have a number of symbols relocated; non-English keyboards have extra characters and relocation]. Like all crypto problems, the more data you have, the better your image of what's taking place, and the better you can identify the underlying data.
The bottom line is, there's more than one way to kill a cat than skinning it & the same applies to passwords: keystroke scanning trojans are only one route; a determined opponent will definitely crack your password if they are prepared to spend the time & money to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, reading the bill, it seems less drastic than the introduction above implies -- it doesn't require the ISP to store everything, just details of the user and their allocated IP address...
Actually, that is precisely the point of unionised voting - something that, historically, regularly put the Labour party in to power & kept them there in the UK.
The principle is that, whatever your knowledge of the candidates, your vote is directed according to your Union, which gives the Union power, and hence a say in the running of the nation. In this fashion, coal miners, teachers and so on were able to have a surprisingly large voice, via the combined might of the trade unions.
Of course, it is also one of the reasons why Thatcher's "breaking of the Unions" was a significant piece of UK political history, as it took a long time for Labour to regroup when their power base was weakened.
So, when answering the original question, "should you vote if you know nothing about either candidate," you have to who consider not only whether the voter is attempting to put in a candidate on the basis of their stated policies, in which case ignorance can be misleading, but also whether they may be achieving a voice from directed voting, as ignorance plays no part there...Unless they can digitally digitally enhance the acting too, it seems more likely that the "upgrade" is simply going to remove character from the show...
Actually, a good portion of the islamic fundamentalists should be considered fascists.
Then again, here's an exert from a reference.com's entry on fascism:
Rather a good description of the home team, too, it seems...
Given the fact that this guy is a national security threat
Of course, this is all backwards. The US should be encouraging civilians to attempt to hack in to their systems; after all, how else are the weaknesses to be exposed and resolved?
Consider, if you will... a foreign nation decides to attack the US. They might well start with a pre-emptive missile strike, but the consequences would be most unpleasant -- no, you would precede that strike by attacking the US defence network: the more disharmony you can cause there, the more likely you are to effectively make the attack.
Accordingly, I find it disconcerting that the US Government is concentrating on deflecting attention away from the real problem (inadequate security) rather than dealing with it. Don't you want to know that your Defence systems are as secure from attack? How can you unless you test it properly?
But that's just my tuppence worth...
Perhaps there is even more to it than that. In the sinister world of real people playing unreal games [ie, power tripping] having banned CmdrTaco and forced a name change, it would be simple to unban it and take it over himself, then masquerade as the original.
Lo and behind, virtual identity theft. And not a thing you can do about it...
That's a very interesting definition, with an interesting lack of respect for boundaries: whilst uninforcable outside of the US, it has implications for web pages that bear facsimile of the seal that are read in the US. Of course, it also uses the phrase 'reasonably calculated' which, being related to the subjective views of 'the common man' is apparently what the Onion's lawyers will say obviates their exposure.
It is an interesting approach for that ultimate piece of spyware - by which I mean, it starts out as a quite, unassuming media file lister that allows to to check your computer is legal: not entirely a bad idea. But as usage takes off, and new versions of the program are released, the sophistication will improve. Soon, it will auto-update off the internet, and one of those releases will include an upload... After all, you did agree to that end user license for the original version, didn't you? Ho hum.
Hey - someone posted the 'model answers' transcript for job interviews!
Actually, this is not new: and not even impractical.
The technology is available to produce a high resolution recording of the key strokes from a considerable distance, provided there is a glass window on a room. Laser technology is used to pick up the vibrations from the glass as a resolution that will astound.
Even if you are aware that you are being evesdropped and attempt to obfuscate the sound by using shift or caps locks keys, be aware that the key makes sounds both on being depressed and released - and the better the keyboard, the more defined [hence identifiable] the clicks are!
I've done some cryptography in my day, and can tell you that the probability of identifying they keys associated with their sounds goes up very quickly, provided the listener can make a couple of basic assumptions: language being the most basic, though awareness of non-standard keyboard layout would be another [US/UK keyboards have a number of symbols relocated; non-English keyboards have extra characters and relocation]. Like all crypto problems, the more data you have, the better your image of what's taking place, and the better you can identify the underlying data.
The bottom line is, there's more than one way to kill a cat than skinning it & the same applies to passwords: keystroke scanning trojans are only one route; a determined opponent will definitely crack your password if they are prepared to spend the time & money to do so.
ho hum.