I think it has more to do with protecting people involved. Let's say a 22-year old person was involved, 70 years later he'll be 92, which means most likely dead.
But say that 22 yr old had a child, who turned out to be a pretty important guy who could be embarrassed about his fathers misdeeds.
I'm finding it kind of interesting that the cut off date is 32 years and not 30 which is the number I've seen quoted as the usual interval that records are reviewed for release.. these CIA records are being released are dated up to 1975 right? When did Bush Sr. become the CIA director again, 1975 wasn't it?
When somebody sells black market antibiotics, for example, there is a serious risk that they are not what they claim to be or are contaminated, so the black market drugs may really be inferior and dangerous. When somebody sells pirated copies of Microsoft Windows, the OS that the purchaser gets is just as safe (or just as unsafe) as a licensed copy.
Interestingly, I just heard a Microsoft representative on national radio here in the UK (Chris Evans show on Radio 2) claim that pirate copies of Windows are virus and spyware infested and you really shouldn't use them because you could lose your data, like wedding photos, and that people can hack into your bank account if you use them.
Hell, you can't even stay logged into Slashdot through Lynx anymore because it relies on Javascript for some reason.
I'm not sure why that is, but its not because of javascript - I am running Firefox with Noscript (slashdot not permitted to run scripts) and stay logged in all the time..
That is almost correct. In Europe, software _as such_ cannot be patented. And "as such" turn out to be two very important words in this context. Patent lawyers have been very creative in getting software patented as something that is not quite software "as such". The most popular approach seems to be to patent it as software "that runs on a computer", which may or may not be different from software "as such".
IANAL but I have written and released patent infringing software, and I always wondered if I would say that it is in fact software "as such", then obviously if they claim their patent does not cover software "as such", obviously their patent does not conflict with my released software..
..but actually, I just don't care about their patent.
I find it strange that Google does not already have a bank account in Brazil, stuffed to the brim with Reals.
Have you never done business with Brazilians before, or do you require all payments to be made in US dollars to a US bank account?
obviously, rinse and repeat for most of the countries in the world..
You're missing the point, as far as the U.S. Mint is concerned. They don't really care how convenient it is for you to use. They care about the fact that right now, it costs less than 5 cents to make a nickel. That means the Mint makes money on every nickel they sell to the banks. Introducing replacement nickels into the economy makes money for the mint.
Wow, its like you are saying they've got a license to print money or something..
immaculate conception, basicly conception (and thus birth) with out sex. the story does not say that god had sex with mary. It is MAGIC, deal with it.
I should point out that the whole virgin thing is commonly attributed to a mistranslation in any case and that the original word used meant 'young woman' not 'virgin'. The bible is a mismash of contradictory stories cobbled together at different times for various reasons, you really shouldn't be taking it seriously.
However, this is a issue that is easily solved. Release the
documentation for this chipset (or, even better, the original code).
First, I will say. Thanks for writing a letter.. I would like to point out though, that from the PoV of a device driver writer, I would prefer the documentation than the original code. The specifications of hardware give lots more information that a different OS might need to know, rather than 'how the Windows driver works'
Just like how leaving your keys in the ignition could help a criminal steal it and commit a crime, leaving your wireless internet open could let a criminal do anything they want on the internet without being traced (eg. child porn).
Like, how long does it take an expert to break into a car and steal it WITHOUT the keys, a couple of minutes?
Like, how long does it take an expert to break into your WEP secured access point these days, a couple of minutes?
Note also, that somebody who uses a public wireless access point is not a criminal. Lets not get into the habit of comparing it with car theft..
Now, if anything pans out, that is another thing...
Thats something about TFA that struck me:
The glass spheres should be so small and slippery that they ought to flow through pipes like a liquid, the patent says.
Surely when you patent something, you should be patenting something that demonstrably works, not something that ought to work? I glanced at the patent but its incomprehensible to me, I'm not sure if this is something they have tried it or not. Anybody know anything about this?
I wonder what would happen if this company ICM just went out and bought some bandwidth (guess they already got some of that), and set up a DNS server that would handle requests from the.xxx domain, and started selling subdomains of it to people who wanted name resolutions there.
Although ICANN are 'the domain authority' they have refused to handle this TLD so surely its up for grabs? ICM could advertise their services and its up to the DNS admins of all the DNS servers around the world if they want to add it as an authoritative server, surely? If some porn sites decide to get on board and offer free porn to all comers (heh) then the end customer demand might be high enough that ISPs the world over add it.
I freely admit, I am no DNS admin and I dont know how it works.
How exactly did this work?
I understand the idea was to SPAM the Spammers.
But who exactly did they span? The spoofed addresses? The owner of the original IP?
In the USA there is legislation that attempts to legitimise sending of unsolicited commercial email. This is the Can-Spam act and says among other things that if you want to send such, you must provide an opt-out method for people who dont want to receive it.
Obviously this only applies to US businesses who want to send junk emails, but there are plenty of those - and they think that because they follow the rules and provide an opt-out that its legitimate business.
Now, these companies contact or are contacted by somebody who is willing to send out bulk emails on their behalf for a fee. Often this turns out to be a scumbag bot operator in another country and as such is not subject to the US rules. These guys are beyond any law except the law of supply and demand.
What the Blue Frog people did was set up a system where you could forward junk mails to them, and they would discover the originating business and automatically fill out an opt-out request for you. This costs the US companies who are trying to run a business time and money to process and makes it less attractive for them to pay the spam kings to send the bulk mail and thus reduces demand.
Less demand is less money for the spam king and one or more (I would not be surprised to find a cartel) decided to attack Blue Frog.
How does a plane flying around the world or a boat floating around the world affect my commute?
It captures the attention of the masses, and somebody steps up and says 'I want one of those' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one something like that' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one of those!' and the manufacturing of solar panels goes into overdrive and the price comes down and the capability goes up and its affordable to make solar powered buses and the city does that and makes them free for use to cut down on the traffic fumes and all of a sudden your life is better.
Ok, its just the first step..
It's no big deal to hit 60-70 in a boat
Its quite a big deal to reach those kind of speeds in a boat. Its not like getting into a car and putting your foot down, think about what would happen to your car if there were 10cm bumps in the road, and 10cm bumps in the water is nothing.
But not more reliable. Solar panels could be installed inside a hard shell of (say) lexan and easily survive a hurricane.
Unfortunately a trimaran covered in solar panels is the worst kind of boat to be in during a hurricane, because its got lots of non removable surface area and its very light. A friend of mine was on board his trimaran during Hurricane Georges in 1998 and he was flipped three times.
Sails and masts are likely to be damaged by the wind.
Sails can be removed, and masts are very strong. I was on board my boat during Hurricane Lenny and the strength of the mast and rigging was not an issue. In olden times with weaker rigging it might have been, but they used to take spars down when not in use.
I guess my question is: I understand that Bluetooth can be hacked trivially, allowing someone, for instance, to steal all the phone numbers in the Bluetooth enabled cell phone in my pocket
Well, dont forget that Bluetooth is the transport layer. All these things happen over other transport layers if the security is not good enough at each end. The major difference seems to be that when you buy a device with 'Bluetooth' its usually an unprogrammable device (phone, headset,..) so you can't rework the configuration yourself, and some manufacturers just did it badly.
but can they listen to my call by intercepting the signal from my headset?
With available technology, not that I know of. The thing is, most consumer Bluetooth hardware is all on a chip and there is no known way to do things like place it in promisicuous mode in order to listen to other devices (as you can do with WiFi hardware). I'm not sure but I think that in order to conform to Bluetooth spec and be approved to use the Bluetooth name and logo you would not be able to produce hardware that could.
It may be possible for engineers who work at companies that develop bluetooth hardware to listen in on your phone call but they will have very expensive kit that does that. It may be possible to make a 2.4Ghz receiver and decode the packets yourself as I dont think that Bluetooth Headsets use encrypted links but that isnt going to be easy and its about as likely as people listening to digital cellular traffic I would think - does that happen?
Seems to me if they have to "pair" to steel then the answer is no. Am I wrong?
Good to know the best of the mono headsets, but how come these stereo wraparound headsets+microphones aren't more popular?
Normally Bluetooth headsets use the Headset profile for transmission of audio data over low latency isochronous links and is mono only, but these boys are using the newer "Advanced Audio Distribution Protocol" (A2DP) which operates over rfcomm (emulated serial) links and is not well supported in cell phones as yet.
In fact, the first link you posted said that the only phone that supports it properly is only available in Asia, though I saw on Nokias website recently that a few of their newer models will be supporting it (eg 6125).
So, you're saying that "Intelligent Design" may be better than "Evolution" after all?
You jest, but if some puny human managed to design something more intelligently than evolution did, that would surely be a staggering blow to "Intelligent Design" and the creationist myth, hm?
Yep. Any time you're interfacing with the OS at that low a level, you have to consider that new versions of the OS might be different under the hood.
I recall Amiga developers having to learn this going from Workbench 1.2 to Workbench 1.3. Not that the ROM addresses might be different, but that they will be, and the only way around it was to use the published API.
No, I never said that. They are a big corporation and no doubt have many diverse goals, but the leadership (BG) doesnt seem to be interested in getting market share by being better than the competition. I recall reading an interview in some mag way back (probably 80s even, I've got no reference now but I havent read computer mags properly for a long time) where Bill Gates stated that his ultimate desire was for Microsoft to be the only game in town, and was never going to be satisfied with 99% market share.
You know they deserve their evil corporation reputation, it comes from within.
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But say that 22 yr old had a child, who turned out to be a pretty important guy who could be embarrassed about his fathers misdeeds.
I'm finding it kind of interesting that the cut off date is 32 years and not 30 which is the number I've seen quoted as the usual interval that records are reviewed for release.. these CIA records are being released are dated up to 1975 right? When did Bush Sr. become the CIA director again, 1975 wasn't it?
Hmm..I find it strange that Google does not already have a bank account in Brazil, stuffed to the brim with Reals.
Have you never done business with Brazilians before, or do you require all payments to be made in US dollars to a US bank account?
obviously, rinse and repeat for most of the countries in the world..
I should point out that the whole virgin thing is commonly attributed to a mistranslation in any case and that the original word used meant 'young woman' not 'virgin'. The bible is a mismash of contradictory stories cobbled together at different times for various reasons, you really shouldn't be taking it seriously.
First, I will say. Thanks for writing a letter.. I would like to point out though, that from the PoV of a device driver writer, I would prefer the documentation than the original code. The specifications of hardware give lots more information that a different OS might need to know, rather than 'how the Windows driver works'
Like, how long does it take an expert to break into a car and steal it WITHOUT the keys, a couple of minutes?
Like, how long does it take an expert to break into your WEP secured access point these days, a couple of minutes?
Note also, that somebody who uses a public wireless access point is not a criminal. Lets not get into the habit of comparing it with car theft..
Interesting how the cubicle George Michael was in was deemed a public place though, eh?
Thats something about TFA that struck me:
The glass spheres should be so small and slippery that they ought to flow through pipes like a liquid, the patent says.
Surely when you patent something, you should be patenting something that demonstrably works, not something that ought to work? I glanced at the patent but its incomprehensible to me, I'm not sure if this is something they have tried it or not. Anybody know anything about this?
I wonder what would happen if this company ICM just went out and bought some bandwidth (guess they already got some of that), and set up a DNS server that would handle requests from the .xxx domain, and started selling subdomains of it to people who wanted name resolutions there.
Although ICANN are 'the domain authority' they have refused to handle this TLD so surely its up for grabs? ICM could advertise their services and its up to the DNS admins of all the DNS servers around the world if they want to add it as an authoritative server, surely? If some porn sites decide to get on board and offer free porn to all comers (heh) then the end customer demand might be high enough that ISPs the world over add it.
I freely admit, I am no DNS admin and I dont know how it works.
I understand the idea was to SPAM the Spammers.
But who exactly did they span? The spoofed addresses? The owner of the original IP?
In the USA there is legislation that attempts to legitimise sending of unsolicited commercial email. This is the Can-Spam act and says among other things that if you want to send such, you must provide an opt-out method for people who dont want to receive it.
Obviously this only applies to US businesses who want to send junk emails, but there are plenty of those - and they think that because they follow the rules and provide an opt-out that its legitimate business.
Now, these companies contact or are contacted by somebody who is willing to send out bulk emails on their behalf for a fee. Often this turns out to be a scumbag bot operator in another country and as such is not subject to the US rules. These guys are beyond any law except the law of supply and demand.
What the Blue Frog people did was set up a system where you could forward junk mails to them, and they would discover the originating business and automatically fill out an opt-out request for you. This costs the US companies who are trying to run a business time and money to process and makes it less attractive for them to pay the spam kings to send the bulk mail and thus reduces demand.
Less demand is less money for the spam king and one or more (I would not be surprised to find a cartel) decided to attack Blue Frog.
Space suits are impermeable to odour, you fool.
It captures the attention of the masses, and somebody steps up and says 'I want one of those' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one something like that' and somebody else steps up and says 'I want one of those!' and the manufacturing of solar panels goes into overdrive and the price comes down and the capability goes up and its affordable to make solar powered buses and the city does that and makes them free for use to cut down on the traffic fumes and all of a sudden your life is better.
Ok, its just the first step..
It's no big deal to hit 60-70 in a boat
Its quite a big deal to reach those kind of speeds in a boat. Its not like getting into a car and putting your foot down, think about what would happen to your car if there were 10cm bumps in the road, and 10cm bumps in the water is nothing.
Unfortunately a trimaran covered in solar panels is the worst kind of boat to be in during a hurricane, because its got lots of non removable surface area and its very light. A friend of mine was on board his trimaran during Hurricane Georges in 1998 and he was flipped three times.
Sails and masts are likely to be damaged by the wind.
Sails can be removed, and masts are very strong. I was on board my boat during Hurricane Lenny and the strength of the mast and rigging was not an issue. In olden times with weaker rigging it might have been, but they used to take spars down when not in use.
Well, dont forget that Bluetooth is the transport layer. All these things happen over other transport layers if the security is not good enough at each end. The major difference seems to be that when you buy a device with 'Bluetooth' its usually an unprogrammable device (phone, headset, ..) so you can't rework the configuration yourself, and some manufacturers just did it badly.
but can they listen to my call by intercepting the signal from my headset?
With available technology, not that I know of. The thing is, most consumer Bluetooth hardware is all on a chip and there is no known way to do things like place it in promisicuous mode in order to listen to other devices (as you can do with WiFi hardware). I'm not sure but I think that in order to conform to Bluetooth spec and be approved to use the Bluetooth name and logo you would not be able to produce hardware that could.
It may be possible for engineers who work at companies that develop bluetooth hardware to listen in on your phone call but they will have very expensive kit that does that. It may be possible to make a 2.4Ghz receiver and decode the packets yourself as I dont think that Bluetooth Headsets use encrypted links but that isnt going to be easy and its about as likely as people listening to digital cellular traffic I would think - does that happen?
Seems to me if they have to "pair" to steel then the answer is no. Am I wrong?
Seems to me that no, you are not wrong..
Normally Bluetooth headsets use the Headset profile for transmission of audio data over low latency isochronous links and is mono only, but these boys are using the newer "Advanced Audio Distribution Protocol" (A2DP) which operates over rfcomm (emulated serial) links and is not well supported in cell phones as yet.
In fact, the first link you posted said that the only phone that supports it properly is only available in Asia, though I saw on Nokias website recently that a few of their newer models will be supporting it (eg 6125).
Hm, I wonder if Vim has a spell checker for that?
You jest, but if some puny human managed to design something more intelligently than evolution did, that would surely be a staggering blow to "Intelligent Design" and the creationist myth, hm?
I recall Amiga developers having to learn this going from Workbench 1.2 to Workbench 1.3. Not that the ROM addresses might be different, but that they will be, and the only way around it was to use the published API.
You know they deserve their evil corporation reputation, it comes from within.