Because entanglement does not transmit state between the entangled pairs. It only allows you to, after separation, determine the state of the remote node by reading the local one.
If you change the first node nothing is projected or expected to happen to the other in the pair.
Believe me, if they find a way to transmit information FTL in any method it would be plastered all over the papers, the internet, and Slashdot, and would call into question many parts of science as it is understood at the moment.
Ok, this is an old article by slashdot standards, so I'm not sure if anyone will see this, but the transactions you point out here simply cannot happen in the way you describe. What actually would happen is this:
[GT1] Tells exchange, sell for as little as 21.10 (what is this, a market or stop limit order? Whatever, we will roll with that for now and assume the price is 21.10 too)
[HFT] Places buy order with exchange for 21.35
[Exchange] Tells HFT "Sold! at 21.10"
[HFT] Tells exchange: "HaHa - only kidding. Cancel it."
[Exchange] Tells HFT "Cannot Cancel - already filled at 21.10 dummy"
This is ignoring NBBO rules (by assuming there is no better bid or offer of course), and some exchanges will do price improvement for the market maker (resting order) so you could get matched at 21.23 or something as it is the mid-point. But you cannot back out of a matched trade unless you are a bank or other privileged broker dealer AND you are in a dark pool (not one of the major exchanges) offering such functionality (hint: you won't have any such functionality in the US equity, options, or futures exchanges which participate in the NBBO).
If you are an HFT trader and you get picked (matched / filled) on a quote you momentarily had on the market but did not intend to trade... well that just sucks to be you.... I hope you had a hedge bet or are prepared to take that risk because the stock/options/futures are now yours.
And yes, my jobs over the last few years have been at HFT shops. No we don't get to back out of trades just because we have buyers remorse.
Honestly the shit that boils up to insightful around here on slashdot is really pitifully inaccurate when it comes to trading. Everything from the mechanics of how trading happens to what liquidity does or doesn't do to the stock market or how "average" investors interact with the system.
Let's just start with the fact that the brokers backing places like Interactive Brokers and other online self-trade brokers (e-trade, etc) where "average joes" go to trade IS a place where you are basically free lunch for the HFT's but it wasn't necessarily bad for you (as a click-trader) either. One place I worked at LOVED to market make into one of those vendors because that was the only place we were allowed "last-look" functionality (cancel trade after making a match) and click-traders were wonderfully more lucrative than the standard exchanges due to the fact that our connections to the brokers were faster than the broker to the other exchanges. But, one of the services we offered (by being a broker to click-traders in the first place) was to make sure that if anyone wanted to execute their orders at any given time we would basically already be quoting into them for them to hit. We could match orders between click-trader and exchanges faster than the brokerage firm could in the first place... And if we used last-look we had to do it in less than 1/4 of a second so the broker could route the order elsewhere otherwise the trade was considered valid and stands "as-is" whether we liked it or not. In order to keep that functionality we also had to meet targets for percent of our orders which were matched, cancelled, filled, etc...
In other words we had to match a minimum of X% of our quotes by volume, we had to not cancel X% of our quotes within X time period, and only some miniscule % of our orders could be last-looked. If any of those fell out of line the broker agreement would have been terminated (because we would have been abusing them and their customers).
Anyone know if there is a good way to have relatively optimized reception over that whole spectrum without having to swap your antennas when changing frequencies?
Have you ever clicked preview and then submit (after reading parent post and reply twice over) only to get the joke immediately after that? Ignore me, I'm up without caffeine...
I'll just point out that most 10Gb switches (datacenter switching) have totally dropped 10mb and 100mb support. Or, in the case where it is supported, you get some fun knock-on effects like buffering of all switch traffic (using the CPU / memory for switching activity) on the switch instead of using the hardware fabric for direct switching. This has repercussions for latency and switch performance.
I found this out the hard way by trying to plug a (cheap?) Cisco ASA (with 100Mb ports) into Arista and Cisco Nexus 5XXX switches... I ended up having to use a crappy 1Gb netgear switch to bridge the two devices (which was OK, I just used the switch connecting ILO to the ASA for that).
For cost reasons, there is absolutely no reason to only wire up for 10Mb anymore. It is no cheaper than using the silicon for 100Mb link speed even if your device is much slower than 100Mb. Hell, to that end Raspberry PI has a 1Gb Ethernet port on it.
OTOH. These standards, by sheer fact that they are referencing 1Tbs needs, are most certainly relevant to the backhaul providers and not any normal business outside of that group. Fractional or non-base 10 speeds have been common in those networks since well before the power of 10 thing came about. Once the rest of the technology catches up and makes the power of 10 thing feasible, then the standard "commodity" equipment picks it up (primarily for marketing reasons IMO). Power of 10 is convenient for math reasons, but frequently means absolutely nothing to the backhaul guys (the early adopters).
Those businesses who purchase the regular "commodity" power-of-10 equipment really should be set for a while with the previously commoditised 10Gb links. They are performant, relatively cheap, available, run across the nation, and hard to saturate with the equipment that plugs into either side. I've worked with 8x10Gb multiplexed cross-country low-latency fiber wan links. It is a ludicrous amount of bandwidth unless you are routing other networks like a backhaul provider. I would struggle to name normal businesses which would be unable to use 10Gb links due to a lack of bandwith (for the immediate future). The needs really are different between these markets.
As an aside, fiber may be sold commonly in 100m lengths, but that has nothing to do with the distance the light will work at properly for the speed it is rated. Some fiber / wavelength pairs are only good for a few feet. Others go km, but not with the same NIC, Fiber, Switches, or patch panels. 100m is a really shitty (too short) standard for datacenter use anyways. Frequently, we will get two cages in a datacenter at different times... and they end up farther than 100m apart making copper irrelevant for that use.
Change is incremental like ripples, but big changes come in waves. Back-haul wants the ripples, everyone else wants the wave. I say, let them have their ripples and pay for the development of the waves. It saves both groups of consumers money so long as there aren't TOO many ripples per wave.
Nope, loved ones remains (or even just hair I think) can be as well.
I guess it's not just the remains used to make the diamond, but rather, it's the specific additions from the remains which impurify or "add character" to the diamond by adding color and whatnot. I assume that the base for the diamond would be provided by the company.
Also, judging by their pages, it looks like you can pickup loose stones of whatever color you want as well.
Bill O'Reilly: "I'm Not Sure [Romney] Is Correct On That. The Embassy Was Trying To Head Off The Violence" With Statement. During the September 12 edition of Fox News' O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly played video of Romney's remarks from his September 12 press conference and said, "I'm not sure the governor is correct on that. The embassy was trying to head off the violence" with their statement. [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 9/12/12]
Former McCain Adviser: Pointing Out "That We Reject Vile Attacks On Muslims...Does Not Constitute Sympathy For The People Besieging Our Embassy As Gov. Romney Alleged." Longtime John McCain adviser Mark Salter responded to Romney's remarks on the embassy's statement on the website RealClearPolitics: "
[T]here is nothing wrong in principle with making clear to people, who have yet to embrace the categorical right to free speech, that Americans and their government deplore the deplorable, that we reject vile attacks on Muslims as vigorously as we reject vile anti-Semitic attacks.
To do so does not constitute sympathy for the people besieging our embassy, as Gov. Romney alleged. Nor is at an apology for America, as some Obama critics have claimed. It's an expression of our decency. [RealClearPolitics, 9/12/12] "
Noonan: Romney Isn't "Doing Himself Any Favors," "When Hot Things Happen, Cool Words -- Or No Words -- Is The Way To Go." Former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan commented on Romney's remarks on Fox News, a Wall Street Journal blog reported: "
Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan who writes a column for The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages, said on Fox News that he had opened himself up to accusations that he was "trying to exploit things politically."
"I belong to the old school of thinking in times of great drama and heightened crisis, and at times when something violent is happening to your people, I always think discretion is the better way to go," she said. "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors.... When hot things happen, cool words- or no words- is the way to go." [Washington Wire, The Wall Street Journal, 9/12/12] "... (it continues, but my point is made)...
I think parent post meant that because Apple introduced machines with USB as their primary device interconnect it spurred the adoption rate of USB across the board. Specifically because the Mac left off the old connectors, introduced connectors which were becoming standard on PC's, and they had enough market share so that the keyboard manufacturers who wanted a slice of Apples market share could adopt without having two different controller chips and interfaces. I do remember a few people using the USB Mac keyboards on their PC's and PC compatible laptops early on (before many were available on the market).
Now, as far as whether or not that is factually a correlation or a causation in the overall adoption rate I will leave that up to other people better versed in the history of USB's adoption. However, I can appreciate that USB has dropped the sheer variety of necessary ports on my PC compatible desktops. Though I would hesitate to thank Apple for that outright since they were just another factor in its successful adoption to me.
Personally, I still prefer PS/2 for for KVM purposes, but the key benefit to USB keyboards is hot-swapping in case of failure, or leaving servers headless in the datacenter and just using a crash cart. PS/2 may or may not work if hot-swapped.
Until then, learn the difference between something you can see with your natural, unaided eye (such as a billboard or something illegal on your front lawn) and something that requires a computer, wireless card, drivers that support promiscuous mode, an operating system that supports that driver with a network stack that supports that mode of operation, a sniffer program to pull down the data, and an application that can translate that data into human-readable content for the police to view with their natural, unaided eyes.
Does it change your calculation when all of those requirements are fulfilled by a stock Mac OSX Laptop with no special tools on it? Also, your cell call interception thing is a bit out of date since encryption is used there.
Consider this: If you get on a CB (or other unlicensed) radio, and proceed to talk about a crime you committed, would you be surprised to find that you are investigated by police? After all, they would have needed "special" equipment to intercept that transmission. Unlicensed band is unlicensed band after all...
I couldn't help but notice that you have made a vast number of posts arguing with various people about this issue. Maybe time to walk out in the sunshine and breathe a little bit of fresh air.
Consequently, you may have overestimated how private unencrypted radio communications are or ever have been considered to be.
Even police scanners work off of the same principals you see at work here. Various police departments tried to ban people from using them, but since they were broadcasting a regular analog signal over radio waves they were struck down by the courts. Much of NASA's transmissions can be listened in on for the same reason as well if I'm not mistaken. If it's open communications, analog or digital, which transmit over the airwaves; then consequently you cannot be punished for receiving, decoding, or even recording those communications. There is no expectation of privacy surrounding unencrypted radio signals (analog or digital). The only relevant laws about this is that you cannot interfere with those communications (no transmitting on police or NASA bands for example). You cannot be prosecuted for receiving anything on any airwaves (only transmitting IIRC). It's only when you try to break encrypted communications systems that you can be prosecuted for other crimes (revolving around that act, not possessing the receiver).
If you visit web pages and send e-mail over open (unencrypted) WIFI without using a higher level encryption (HTTPS, SMTPS, etc) then it is EXCEEDINGLY easy to see or reconstruct your entire communication without any specialist tools (software or otherwise). It is transmitted in plain text!
Also, I fail to see how securing FREE applications (especially for FREE operating systems) and learning to use them by means of FREE Google searches or man pages exactly makes them specialist tools. ANYONE with an interest can pickup the tools and learn how to use them for free.
You may be right that it would require specialized tools to reconstruct something like a YouTube video stream (which probably has been done by now). But that is just a matter of someone reverse engineering the protocols behind it, not cracking specific messages. It would not require specialist tools on the same order as what would be necessary to crack encryption protocols. Cracking a protocol in order to be able to decode it is VASTLY different than cracking the encryption to gain access to a specific data flow.
The laws also reflect this. If you transmit something in plain text over the air waves then don't expect the law to protect the privacy of that message, you are the one being the fool. If you encrypt either the link or at least the message then you can be reasonably certain there is privacy. If you don't know the difference between plain text, barely obfuscated plain text (protocol unknown, but data legible / compilable), and encrypted messages then apparently you have missed 2,000 years of history which is no ones fault but yours.
Slashdot Mirror
That is exactly why (s)he said (s)he doesn't care where yours is ASSEMBLED, it's largely irrelevant.
... drive nice shoes, and wear nice cars...
Ok, your post was already doing well... but that part just about got Mt. Dew sprayed on my monitor...
I'm going to put on a pair of Corvettes and drive my Nike home now. Nothing to see here, move along...
- Toast
My layman's understanding is this:
Because entanglement does not transmit state between the entangled pairs. It only allows you to, after separation, determine the state of the remote node by reading the local one.
If you change the first node nothing is projected or expected to happen to the other in the pair.
Believe me, if they find a way to transmit information FTL in any method it would be plastered all over the papers, the internet, and Slashdot, and would call into question many parts of science as it is understood at the moment.
- Toast
Ok, this is an old article by slashdot standards, so I'm not sure if anyone will see this, but the transactions you point out here simply cannot happen in the way you describe. What actually would happen is this:
[GT1] Tells exchange, sell for as little as 21.10 (what is this, a market or stop limit order? Whatever, we will roll with that for now and assume the price is 21.10 too)
[HFT] Places buy order with exchange for 21.35
[Exchange] Tells HFT "Sold! at 21.10"
[HFT] Tells exchange: "HaHa - only kidding. Cancel it."
[Exchange] Tells HFT "Cannot Cancel - already filled at 21.10 dummy"
This is ignoring NBBO rules (by assuming there is no better bid or offer of course), and some exchanges will do price improvement for the market maker (resting order) so you could get matched at 21.23 or something as it is the mid-point. But you cannot back out of a matched trade unless you are a bank or other privileged broker dealer AND you are in a dark pool (not one of the major exchanges) offering such functionality (hint: you won't have any such functionality in the US equity, options, or futures exchanges which participate in the NBBO).
If you are an HFT trader and you get picked (matched / filled) on a quote you momentarily had on the market but did not intend to trade... well that just sucks to be you.... I hope you had a hedge bet or are prepared to take that risk because the stock/options/futures are now yours.
And yes, my jobs over the last few years have been at HFT shops. No we don't get to back out of trades just because we have buyers remorse.
Honestly the shit that boils up to insightful around here on slashdot is really pitifully inaccurate when it comes to trading. Everything from the mechanics of how trading happens to what liquidity does or doesn't do to the stock market or how "average" investors interact with the system.
Let's just start with the fact that the brokers backing places like Interactive Brokers and other online self-trade brokers (e-trade, etc) where "average joes" go to trade IS a place where you are basically free lunch for the HFT's but it wasn't necessarily bad for you (as a click-trader) either. One place I worked at LOVED to market make into one of those vendors because that was the only place we were allowed "last-look" functionality (cancel trade after making a match) and click-traders were wonderfully more lucrative than the standard exchanges due to the fact that our connections to the brokers were faster than the broker to the other exchanges. But, one of the services we offered (by being a broker to click-traders in the first place) was to make sure that if anyone wanted to execute their orders at any given time we would basically already be quoting into them for them to hit. We could match orders between click-trader and exchanges faster than the brokerage firm could in the first place... And if we used last-look we had to do it in less than 1/4 of a second so the broker could route the order elsewhere otherwise the trade was considered valid and stands "as-is" whether we liked it or not. In order to keep that functionality we also had to meet targets for percent of our orders which were matched, cancelled, filled, etc...
In other words we had to match a minimum of X% of our quotes by volume, we had to not cancel X% of our quotes within X time period, and only some miniscule % of our orders could be last-looked. If any of those fell out of line the broker agreement would have been terminated (because we would have been abusing them and their customers).
So yeah, take that as you will I guess...
- Toast
The picture in the article thankfully had the URL on the PCB, so it's not like I had to play super sleuth to find it...
I appreciate that. I might be heavily vested into computers, but radio isn't something I have had the pleasure to tinker with too much.
Also, found the repo / blog for that board (article was lacking in details):
http://www.greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/
https://github.com/mossmann/hackrf
- Toast
Antenna design for this must be miserable...
Anyone know if there is a good way to have relatively optimized reception over that whole spectrum without having to swap your antennas when changing frequencies?
- Toast
First post?
Steven A. Gibson CEO in this article:
http://www.dickinson-wright.com/ourpeople/pages/person.aspx?person=96835d9d-f7d2-430e-a836-92977532ec50
Steven M. Gibson GRC CEO / programmer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gibson_(computer_programmer)
Posting this here since that was the first Steve Gibson I thought of too...
- Toast
I prefer Slashdoggle.
The mental imagery of what that could mean has been entertaining at least (bored while working third shift).
Have you ever clicked preview and then submit (after reading parent post and reply twice over) only to get the joke immediately after that? Ignore me, I'm up without caffeine...
Well, I can't comment on where specific things are attached on your body. But no. It wouldn't.
If they don't... are they still considered to be working to earn their living?
I still wish I could be paid residuals for doing a job once... for the rest of my life...
- Toast
I'll just point out that most 10Gb switches (datacenter switching) have totally dropped 10mb and 100mb support. Or, in the case where it is supported, you get some fun knock-on effects like buffering of all switch traffic (using the CPU / memory for switching activity) on the switch instead of using the hardware fabric for direct switching. This has repercussions for latency and switch performance.
I found this out the hard way by trying to plug a (cheap?) Cisco ASA (with 100Mb ports) into Arista and Cisco Nexus 5XXX switches... I ended up having to use a crappy 1Gb netgear switch to bridge the two devices (which was OK, I just used the switch connecting ILO to the ASA for that).
For cost reasons, there is absolutely no reason to only wire up for 10Mb anymore. It is no cheaper than using the silicon for 100Mb link speed even if your device is much slower than 100Mb. Hell, to that end Raspberry PI has a 1Gb Ethernet port on it.
- Toast
OTOH. These standards, by sheer fact that they are referencing 1Tbs needs, are most certainly relevant to the backhaul providers and not any normal business outside of that group. Fractional or non-base 10 speeds have been common in those networks since well before the power of 10 thing came about. Once the rest of the technology catches up and makes the power of 10 thing feasible, then the standard "commodity" equipment picks it up (primarily for marketing reasons IMO). Power of 10 is convenient for math reasons, but frequently means absolutely nothing to the backhaul guys (the early adopters).
Those businesses who purchase the regular "commodity" power-of-10 equipment really should be set for a while with the previously commoditised 10Gb links. They are performant, relatively cheap, available, run across the nation, and hard to saturate with the equipment that plugs into either side. I've worked with 8x10Gb multiplexed cross-country low-latency fiber wan links. It is a ludicrous amount of bandwidth unless you are routing other networks like a backhaul provider. I would struggle to name normal businesses which would be unable to use 10Gb links due to a lack of bandwith (for the immediate future). The needs really are different between these markets.
As an aside, fiber may be sold commonly in 100m lengths, but that has nothing to do with the distance the light will work at properly for the speed it is rated. Some fiber / wavelength pairs are only good for a few feet. Others go km, but not with the same NIC, Fiber, Switches, or patch panels. 100m is a really shitty (too short) standard for datacenter use anyways. Frequently, we will get two cages in a datacenter at different times... and they end up farther than 100m apart making copper irrelevant for that use.
Change is incremental like ripples, but big changes come in waves. Back-haul wants the ripples, everyone else wants the wave. I say, let them have their ripples and pay for the development of the waves. It saves both groups of consumers money so long as there aren't TOO many ripples per wave.
- Toast
Damn slashdot... ate the chinese/japanese characters in the road names...
I shit you not, those directions indicate you should jet-ski 782km across the pacific ocean:
40. Turn left onto 350
3.4 km
41. Jet ski across the Pacific Ocean
782 km
42. Continue straight onto
- Toast
Nope, loved ones remains (or even just hair I think) can be as well.
I guess it's not just the remains used to make the diamond, but rather, it's the specific additions from the remains which impurify or "add character" to the diamond by adding color and whatnot. I assume that the base for the diamond would be provided by the company.
Also, judging by their pages, it looks like you can pickup loose stones of whatever color you want as well.
- Toast
Well, you can have your cremated remains turned into a diamond at least. Does that count?
http://www.lifegem.com/secondary/LifeGemFAQ2006.aspx
- Toast
The no maintenance thing doesn't check out. They are low maintenance devices but not none. Batteries require maintenance as well.
That being said, I vote for this as well. A new entrant into the market which caught my eye was this:
http://www.power-thru.com/
But even that is on a 6 year / 20 year maintenance cycle (minor / major).
However, I would be curious to see what the performance per dollar amounts to.
- Toast
Go ahead, keep regurgitating garbage you hear without basic fact checking first:
http://factcheck.org/2012/09/romney-gets-it-backward/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/sep/12/romney-says-us-embassy-statement-was-apology-was-i/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-romney-campaigns-repeated-errors-on-the-cairo-embassy-statement/2012/09/13/978a6be6-fdf0-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_blog.html#pagebreak
and just in case you suspect I'm a liberal (I am), lets run down some of the conservative roll call (as pulled from http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/09/13/even-as-experts-gop-figures-criticize-romneys-e/189862):
Bill O'Reilly: "I'm Not Sure [Romney] Is Correct On That. The Embassy Was Trying To Head Off The Violence" With Statement. During the September 12 edition of Fox News' O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly played video of Romney's remarks from his September 12 press conference and said, "I'm not sure the governor is correct on that. The embassy was trying to head off the violence" with their statement. [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 9/12/12]
Former McCain Adviser: Pointing Out "That We Reject Vile Attacks On Muslims...Does Not Constitute Sympathy For The People Besieging Our Embassy As Gov. Romney Alleged." Longtime John McCain adviser Mark Salter responded to Romney's remarks on the embassy's statement on the website RealClearPolitics:
"
[T]here is nothing wrong in principle with making clear to people, who have yet to embrace the categorical right to free speech, that Americans and their government deplore the deplorable, that we reject vile attacks on Muslims as vigorously as we reject vile anti-Semitic attacks.
To do so does not constitute sympathy for the people besieging our embassy, as Gov. Romney alleged. Nor is at an apology for America, as some Obama critics have claimed. It's an expression of our decency. [RealClearPolitics, 9/12/12]
"
Noonan: Romney Isn't "Doing Himself Any Favors," "When Hot Things Happen, Cool Words -- Or No Words -- Is The Way To Go." Former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan commented on Romney's remarks on Fox News, a Wall Street Journal blog reported:
"
Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan who writes a column for The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages, said on Fox News that he had opened himself up to accusations that he was "trying to exploit things politically."
"I belong to the old school of thinking in times of great drama and heightened crisis, and at times when something violent is happening to your people, I always think discretion is the better way to go," she said. "I don't feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors.... When hot things happen, cool words- or no words- is the way to go." [Washington Wire, The Wall Street Journal, 9/12/12] ... (it continues, but my point is made)...
"
- Toast
VMWare workstation - https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation/9_0
Works great for me, both for running linux on windows and windows on linux.
Mac, due to Apple licensing, obviously is not really available.
- Toast
posting this to undo moderation elsewhere in the thread
I think parent post meant that because Apple introduced machines with USB as their primary device interconnect it spurred the adoption rate of USB across the board. Specifically because the Mac left off the old connectors, introduced connectors which were becoming standard on PC's, and they had enough market share so that the keyboard manufacturers who wanted a slice of Apples market share could adopt without having two different controller chips and interfaces. I do remember a few people using the USB Mac keyboards on their PC's and PC compatible laptops early on (before many were available on the market).
Now, as far as whether or not that is factually a correlation or a causation in the overall adoption rate I will leave that up to other people better versed in the history of USB's adoption. However, I can appreciate that USB has dropped the sheer variety of necessary ports on my PC compatible desktops. Though I would hesitate to thank Apple for that outright since they were just another factor in its successful adoption to me.
Personally, I still prefer PS/2 for for KVM purposes, but the key benefit to USB keyboards is hot-swapping in case of failure, or leaving servers headless in the datacenter and just using a crash cart. PS/2 may or may not work if hot-swapped.
- Toast
Until then, learn the difference between something you can see with your natural, unaided eye (such as a billboard or something illegal on your front lawn) and something that requires a computer, wireless card, drivers that support promiscuous mode, an operating system that supports that driver with a network stack that supports that mode of operation, a sniffer program to pull down the data, and an application that can translate that data into human-readable content for the police to view with their natural, unaided eyes.
Does it change your calculation when all of those requirements are fulfilled by a stock Mac OSX Laptop with no special tools on it? Also, your cell call interception thing is a bit out of date since encryption is used there.
Consider this: If you get on a CB (or other unlicensed) radio, and proceed to talk about a crime you committed, would you be surprised to find that you are investigated by police? After all, they would have needed "special" equipment to intercept that transmission. Unlicensed band is unlicensed band after all...
- Toast
I couldn't help but notice that you have made a vast number of posts arguing with various people about this issue. Maybe time to walk out in the sunshine and breathe a little bit of fresh air.
Consequently, you may have overestimated how private unencrypted radio communications are or ever have been considered to be.
Even police scanners work off of the same principals you see at work here. Various police departments tried to ban people from using them, but since they were broadcasting a regular analog signal over radio waves they were struck down by the courts. Much of NASA's transmissions can be listened in on for the same reason as well if I'm not mistaken. If it's open communications, analog or digital, which transmit over the airwaves; then consequently you cannot be punished for receiving, decoding, or even recording those communications. There is no expectation of privacy surrounding unencrypted radio signals (analog or digital). The only relevant laws about this is that you cannot interfere with those communications (no transmitting on police or NASA bands for example). You cannot be prosecuted for receiving anything on any airwaves (only transmitting IIRC). It's only when you try to break encrypted communications systems that you can be prosecuted for other crimes (revolving around that act, not possessing the receiver).
If you visit web pages and send e-mail over open (unencrypted) WIFI without using a higher level encryption (HTTPS, SMTPS, etc) then it is EXCEEDINGLY easy to see or reconstruct your entire communication without any specialist tools (software or otherwise). It is transmitted in plain text!
Also, I fail to see how securing FREE applications (especially for FREE operating systems) and learning to use them by means of FREE Google searches or man pages exactly makes them specialist tools. ANYONE with an interest can pickup the tools and learn how to use them for free.
You may be right that it would require specialized tools to reconstruct something like a YouTube video stream (which probably has been done by now). But that is just a matter of someone reverse engineering the protocols behind it, not cracking specific messages. It would not require specialist tools on the same order as what would be necessary to crack encryption protocols. Cracking a protocol in order to be able to decode it is VASTLY different than cracking the encryption to gain access to a specific data flow.
The laws also reflect this. If you transmit something in plain text over the air waves then don't expect the law to protect the privacy of that message, you are the one being the fool. If you encrypt either the link or at least the message then you can be reasonably certain there is privacy. If you don't know the difference between plain text, barely obfuscated plain text (protocol unknown, but data legible / compilable), and encrypted messages then apparently you have missed 2,000 years of history which is no ones fault but yours.
- Toast