And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good".
I call BS.
First of all, you seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding that "The Government" and "The People" are one and the same. The Government isn't some mystical, magical group of people dropped off by aliens to govern us, THEY ARE US. They worked in bakeries before we elected them. They went to school with us. They live down the street from us. Government are people too! They work for us, they represent us. They're not some enemy force not to be trusted, they are simply the tangible entity that represents a populace on issue in which individual representation would be impractical.
And they most certainly CANNOT "legally kill you and everyone you ever met," for ANY reason. You seem to think that the government routinely operates outside the law and is unaccountable. While I concede that on some financial indiscretions, they may be getting off scot-free, they most definitely do not operate above the law when it comes to killing USAmerican citizens. "Enemy combatants," maybe (although I haven't heard of anyone in Guantanamo bay being executed, along with "everyone they ever met," yet). But we're talking about USAmerican citizens here.
What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?
Move.
The government represents the people. If the government has decreed that "porn is bad, we must block it," then that is the equivalent of society saying that porn is bad. Over here, our government says "Marijuana is bad." To use your own analogy, what if you were a non-Christian living in the US and wanted to smoke Marijuana? What an outrage!
If you live in a culture, you play by their rules. If you don't like their rules, you leave, or try to work within the system in place to change the rules. It's as simple as that.
Well, at least, it should be as simple as that. If that country's values happen to conflict with the US's values, and if that country happens to be sitting atop a vast collection of hydrocarbons, then the US will come in and alter that country's values for you, and you may not have to leave in order to indulge in your vices. But that generally happens quite rarely, so I wouldn't count on that.
If one were to "literally" keep an eye on everything in the store, 24/7, then that would mean that they would have an actual eyeball resting on all their inventory. That's what "literally" means. It means you mean exactly what you said.
"Keep an eye on things" is an expression that doesn't mean you're actually pressing your eyeball up against something - rather, it means that you will watch something. However, when you say you are "LITERALLY keeping an eye on something," then you are saying you don't mean the expression, but rather your comment should be taken literally. That you actually do have an eyeball that is physically touching the item.
That is why I, and others, have picked on your comment.
Don't feel bad, you are not the only one who uses "literally" incorrectly in this way.
This gives me an idea. Up here in Canada, we don't have the protection of a national "Do Not Call" registry. But it *is* still illegal to call people on phones for which they are charged to receive calls (eg., cell phones).
I see here an opportunity for the telecom companies in Canada to increase profits, while stamping out annoying telemarketers. What if they offered a "service" whereby customers could opt-in to a model where on top of their monthly local access fee, they pay an additional 1 cent for every call received. This would add up to at most a couple extra dollars a month for the vast majority of customers, but it would now make it illegal for telemarketers to call them on their land lines. People who are stingy and don't want to pay to receive calls could stick with their existing service. The phone companies would increase revenues by a percent or so, and telemarketers would be shut down.
A capitalist solution where everybody wins, instead of a politcal, legal solution. I like it! What do you guys think?
Mark my words - nothing will happen. Come Monday, they won't even mention it on the news. It won't be being discussed on Slashdot, or, if it is, people will be begging someone to come up with even a single screenshot of a defaced site. Nothing will happen. No sites will be defaced. This is just some kid who put up a goofy webpage that was taken down within a few hours - there is no organization of hackers preparing to unleash a coordinated attack on our web servers. There's just us. Trust me, this is being blown waaay out of proportion.
Extremely high-powered tranceivers? Remember - these tags are passive. You need to be within a few inches (or extremely powerful) to read a signal much farther than that. And of course, there's interference.
How long will it take for DMCA-like laws that make that practice illegal?
Is it presently illegal to remove barcodes from products you purchase? No? Then what makes you think laws could/would be enacted to make an analogous act illegal?
Yes, and I can't wait for organised crime to automatically skim a lil' bit off the top of all our checking accounts as we walk past 'em. Not much, just a few bucks per person, walk around in a crowd and you'd make a few thousand dollars in minutes.
Are you familiar with the concept of an instant-debit tag? I'm not sure what it would be called in your neck of the woods, but up here in Canada, Esso (a gas retailer) gives away these little, black, 1.5 inch wands that attach to your keychain and are linked to your credit card. They're called the "Speedpass." When I pull into an Esso station to order gas, I simply wave this wand over top of the reader at the pump, then grab the nozzle and start fueling. When I'm done, I grab my receipt and drive away. Alternatively, I can go into the attached convenience store, throw some items on the counter, the clerk scans them, then wave my keys in front of another reader, grab my purchases, and walk away. The gas/purchases are automatically billed to my credit card. No buttons, no signatures, just wave, beep, and go.
These devices are very widespread up here. Now, according to your level of paranoia, I should be fearful of walking in large crowds, in case someone is walking around with a reader, waves it by my pocket, and charges me $1500. That hasn't happened. In fact, I've never heard of such a theft occurring to ANYONE, and like I said, these "Speedpasses" are everywhere. It would certainly be fruitful for someone to undertake such an endeavor.
So I don't need to offer theories and logic to counter your ridiculous, paranoid fear: I can simply refer to EXISTING REALITY. These devices are out there NOW, and the abuse you fear is not happening. Your fears are unfounded. They offer convenience and speed, with zero incidence of fraud, to date.
Listen up, Nick Burns (an SNL reference; I see you're across the pond, you probably won't get it), it is very arrogant of people to say that only "morons" would get infected by this stuff. I actually received this virus on Wednesday, before I'd heard about it. The subject line was "Returned mail: Service unavailable", and the sender was " Mail Delivery Subsystem ". Figuring I may have sent an email to someone at AOL and forgot to un-munge their spamproofed email address (it happens often), I opened the email. The contents were a remarkably authentic-looking mail rejection notice:
The original message was received at Wed, 25 Jun 2003 17:33:18 -0400 (EDT) from [12.22.196.75]
*** ATTENTION ***
Your e-mail is being returned to you because there was a problem with its delivery. The address which was undeliverable is listed in the section labeled: "----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----".
The reason your mail is being returned to you is listed in the section labeled: "----- Transcript of Session Follows -----".
The line beginning with "
----- Transcript of session follows -----... while talking to air-xm03.mail.aol.com.: >>> DATA... Service unavailable
Please see the attached zip file for details.
Attached, of course, was a zip file named "your_details.zip." Skeptical, yet curious, I saved the file to my desktop and extracted the contents. It was a.pif file, which I recognized as most assuredly, a virus. I tried examining its properties, but most of them were inaccessible. I tried editing it in a hex editor, and that didn't help much, although I was convinced it was a virus.
I didn't run the file, but only because I know how tricky these guys can be. I must say that this was the most convincing virus email I've ever seen, and I can easily see how many people would be fooled. That doesn't make them morons.
Actually, the "pipedot.org" is still available. I was pretty damn tempted to spend the $14.99 and register it, but I don't care *that* much about the joke.:)
How is being asked to pay for what breaking the law "extortion?" If I park in a handicapped spot because I don't feel like walking very far (I'm not handicapped), and a cop writes me a ticket, is that "extortion?"
some clever enterprising person who is more in tune with music listeners and movie goers want would step in start there own label or studio and start making money by providing music and movies in a way that the customer wants.
That is to say, for free.
They wouldn't make the same obscene profits that the record companies and movie studios currently make
Then how would they convince investors to pony up the venture capital required to get off the ground?
Instead of listening to their customers and trying to make the best of the situation, [The RIAA is] suing them.
No they're not - they're suing the ones who download the music for free, not the ones who actually go out and buy CDs. They are two very different groups. People who pirate their music are not their "customers," in any sense of the word. People who download music pay no money to the RIAA. Whenever they want a song, they just download it. They are no more "customers" of the RIAA than a shoplifter is a "customer" of Walmart.
Bill [I'm maknig these names up] has a wife who has terminal cancer. The only cure is a $2000 bottle of medicine that a local store owner has. Despite putting in tons of effort, he is only able to raise $1000 (ok, a bit unlikely, so scale up the price and abount raised if you prefer). So he breaks in and steals the medicine. Is he in the clear, and why?
I think that he is, at least as long as he left the $1000 he had behind, and especially if he later paid the remaining half. So I don't think it's black and white.
What if the pharmacy he stole that $2000 medicine from was already on the rocks, and the loss of such an expensive inventory item was the straw that broke the camel's back? The Pharmacy goes under, the 5 cashiers and 3 pharmacists all lose their jobs, two of them have trouble finding new jobs and lose their homes, one of them was trying to save up money for her own son's cancer medicine, but now can't afford it...
You can't ignore the ripple effect in justifying immoral actions. "The end does not justify the means."
It's a funny joke, but it's completely unrealistic. Right now, a bunch of people are downloading movies online. Some of these movies, they may have actually paid to see in the theatres. If the MPAA is able to successfully stamp out movie-trading on P2P networks (highly unlikely, but stay with me here), do you really think those downloaders are just going to stop watching movies?
Newsflash: most people don't care about it that much. Especially since deep down, the MPAA has an excellent point. It is stealing, and when the jig is up and the fun's over, and my wife says "Let's go see 'Sweet Home Alabama 2'", am I going to say "No, I'm boycotting those MPAA bastards because the shut down Kazaa."? Not likely. She'd look at me like I dropped my tinfoil hat. "I haven't seen you this upset since I accidentally shrunk your Klingon uniform," she'd say.
No thanks, welcome to the real world, it's no big deal. I think it's pretty obvious that most theives^H^H^H^H^Hmovie downloaders would return to the theatres, and it would pay off for the MPAA and big producers.
This is ridiculous. My point was that the privacy implications of these tags are negligible, considering all the other pervasive methods of surveillance that already exist and hold the same potential for abuse.
Going back to our hotel room example, where Bob is cheating on his wife, with Nancy. Now, presumeably, Bob is supposed to be somewhere else, but instead, he's at the local Howard Johnson having a quickie with Nancy. The parent poster used this as an example of how this tracking technology could be abused (i.e., his wife could notice that Bob's underwear is in the same room as a pair of underwear belonging to his secretary).
RIGHT NOW, _without_ these RFID tags, she could (in theory) already figure this out, through several ways. She could follow him. She could track his credit card and notice he just rented a room at the hotel. She could track his cell phone's location and notice that he's not at the office, where he said he'd be. She could commandeer the hotel's surveillance tapes. She could get a room in the building across the street and use a long-range audio antenna to eavesdrop through the window.
But for some reason, no one seems concerned about any of that. In particular, the "credit card tracking" and "cell phone tracking" exist TODAY and are just as good candidates for abuse as these RFID tags, but you seem OK with those "invasions."
My confusion is why you are OK with those types of potentials for abuse, but not with RFIDs, especially considering that RFIDs are passive devices and can only be scanned at VERY close range (i.e., inches), and thus hiding scanners everywhere would be extremely expensive and impractical, yet people carry active transmitters (cell phones) with them all the time, and you don't seem at all concerned about the privacy issues surrounding THAT.
Why the disparity? Why all the paranoid FUD about a simple NUMBER with the ability to shout itself out to a range of a few inches? It's just a UPC symbol that can be read (at close range) even when line-of-sight is obscured. What's the big deal? Don't you see why this is nothing?
My point is that you wouldn't KNOW that the owner of RFID1 was "Bob" and the owner of RFID2 was "Nancy," unless you had access to the following databases:
1. The customer and inventory databases of the store Bob bought his underwear from. 2. The customer and inventory databases of the store Nancy bought her underwear from (probably not the same store as in 1.) 3. Possibly the bank and credit card databases (likely to be HIGHLY protected), if the store's database only stored the card numbers, and not the person's full names.
Also, if either of them paid cash, then it breaks down, because their name would be impossible to connect to the ID. My point is that sure, lots of things are "connected" nowadays, but I can't just go and peruse Visa's client database, nor do I have any kind of access to Walmart's inventory system. All of these proprietary databases, especially ones housing confidential financial information, are required by law to be protected from intrusion. They're not just going to start offering that credit/bank information up for every hotel and resort that wants to cross-reference clothing info to detect adulterers.
They wouldn't know it was you, unless you paid for your purchase with a card of some sort. If you paid cash, then they'd have no idea who you are. Their ability to track you would depend on being able to link the ID of the item with your credit information, which is unlikely, since the surveillance entity would probably not have access to either database.
First of all, that same couple would have been seen entering and exiting the hotel on surveillance cameras. Why is no one concerned about their affairs being exposed by the security cameras? Because no one cares.
Secondly, these RFIDs are passive transmitters, meaning the receiver would have to be within a few inches to receive the signal. Are hotels going to embed covert readers in every bed in their hotel, just to nab adulterers? Why would they do that, when (tongue-in-cheek) that's a large part of their business?
Thirdly, the RFID is just a number - how would the hotel know that item 38547857594858767593747 is a pair of underwear, and item 4579871248974210 is a pair of panties? They don't have access to Calvin Klein's and Victoria's Secrets' databases.
Take off your tinfoil hat. This is nothing more than a barcode-reader system that'll save manufacturers and retailers time and money. You're not that interesting. No one cares where you go every second of the day, or what you're wearing. The government has bigger fish to fry.
One final slap in your face: on my system, almost all of the.EXE tools in my jdk/bin folder are within a few hundred bytes of each other in size (they're all about 29 KB). Don't you think that's pretty amazing? First of all, to fit an entire compiler in just 29 KB of executable, but also, for 20 different tools and utilities, which perform dramatically different tasks, to all be almost the exact same size???
Do you think maybe it's because they're all just native bootstrappers for different Java programs, and thus, are all almost the exact same, identical C source code (just calling different Java classes)?
How could you make such an ignorant post and not know this stuff?
First of all, the Java chip was and is marketed. It is present in thousands of mobile devices and dumb terminals.
Secondly, you clearly demonstrated your total and utter ignorance when you said:
[Sun] then hired coders to implement a "Java compiler in Java". Result ? The Java compiler in Java was 20 TIMES SLOWER than the Java compiler written in C!
Why would Sun "then" hire Java programmers, when they already employed the very creators of the language? Who knew Java better than those that already worked for Sun and who had created it? Why would they then go out and hire some more Java programmers to re-write the Java compiler?
Finally, also picking on your last, ludicrous statement, the Java compiler was always already written in Java. Its in the com.sun.tools.java.Main class. The Java compiler is a circular-recursive parser, but I wouldn't expect you to know what that means, so let me break it down for you. It means that the language's compiler is written in the language itself.
The Java INTERPRETER is the one that's written in C. You know, that little java.dll file - that's the Java interpreter. It's written in C. When you run "javac" to compile some Java files, all javac.exe is is a native bootstrapper which loads and executes the Java compiler from the tools.jar file. How do you think they ensure that the Java compiler behaves exactly the same on every platform? Because it's the same compiler - the exact same code - written in Java!
Either you're an incredibly ignorant moron who knows just enough about Java to cause some damage, or I've just been successfully trolled.
Orrin has taken over 175K so far just this year from the TV/Movies/Music lobby
Orrin is one of the WORST congressmen this country has EVER had. Bought off like every other congressman but he apparently is not only paid off but stupid about the legislation that he introduces.
Uhm, for a guy who claims to know so much about Orrin Hatch's "secrets," why do you keep calling him a "Congressman?"
He's a Senator, genius. Guess they forgot to mention that on the "Drudge Report," or "Open Secrets," or whatever tabloid is is that you consult for your source of ready-made, controversial opinions.
In the days following Sept 11th, Congress could have passed a bill stating that [Arabs] be summarily executed by the military", and I doubt anyone would have raised a finger or a care.
What?!? Do you honestly believe that? Truly? I mean, come on, that's absurd. If you sincerely believe that your elected representatives are that incredibly stupid, and that your fellow citizens are so amazingly ignorant as to not even question legalizing genocide, then why are you still there? I mean, sure, people get emotional and reactionary in the wake of catastrophes of such magnitude, but do you honestly believe that a majority of your elected elite would be so swept up in emotional turmoil as to completely lose their sense of such fundamental values? I mean, come on, surely you realize what a gross exaggeration this is.
You're going to put emergency fund money into a mutual fund?
Sure, why not? Obviously not a risky one though. There are very stable, very low risk mutual funds that consistently yield around 5-6%, even in a down market like this one. Of course, during a bull market, you'll still only likely be getting 5-6%, but my point is that that beats the hell out of the 1% you'd get by letting that money rot in a savings account.
An emergency fund is not for 10 years from now -- it's for right NOW
Yes, what's your point? In my example, in the "right now" as you put it (i.e., the beginning of the example), both of my fictional people had the same amount of money - $15,000. If an emergency comes up "right NOW", then they'd both be equally well-equipped to weather it. But if things went well for a while, then in the long run, my way would prove to be better.
As for your comment about the money being easily accessible and not decreasing in value, unregistered mutual funds are easily accessible (it might take a week, tops, to get at that money - that's what the line of credit is for), and they are stable, if you stick to the solid, low-risk ones.
What if you'd invested your emergency fund in 1999? Well, you'd be rather screwed now if you needed it, with values down anywhere from 10-50%.
Some funds have gone up in that period. Gold, oil, money markets - the low-risk mutual funds will be a balanced mix of these rock-solid economic components. Don't misinterpret me - I'm not saying you should put your emergency fund into Cisco stock, or the CIBC Technology Fund. I'm advocating putting that money in a low-risk, low-yield mutual fund.
And touching retirement money in 401k's, IRAs (ROTH or otherwise), etc. is about the stupidiest thing you can do, period.
I'm not talking about taking money from registered funds. I'm not completely familiar with IRAs and 401k's, but here in Canada, the analogous investment vehicle is an RRSP, which has an annual maximum contribution limit. So you max that out (about 10 grand), and sure, that's your "untouchable" retirement money. But after that, you put your emergency money in unregistered investments.
Incidentally, I wouldn't say touching your retirement money is the "stupidest thing you can do." I borrowed part of my home's down payment from my RRSP. If I hadn't done that, we wouldn't have been able to afford the house. Under this plan, I have 10 years to pay it all back. In my case, this worked out in my favour, since a large part of my RRSP is Nortel stock (I'm a former Nortel employee, company matching contributions and all that). If I'd left that money in there, it would have shrunk down to next to nothing. Instead, I now have that equity in my house, which has gone up in value by about 10% in 2 years, by comparison. But of course, I concede that this is merely a gamble that worked out in my favour, and doesn't constitute any investment advice.
Oh, and BTW, you're commiting fraud if you touch that line of credit once you're laid off.
I'm not so sure about that. Your line of credit is based on many factors, not just your employment status. In my case, my home equity and existing assets (combined with my employed spouse) would most likely work in my favour, if I were to be laid off, and they wouldn't revoke my credit line. Besides, like I said, you'd only need to use it until you get at that mutual fund money, which would take maybe a week, tops. Then you pay the line of credit back.
And if you need that much money that soon after being laid off, and can't wait a week, then you are living DANGEROUSLY close to your means, and have somehow managed to find a region below "paycheck-to-paycheck," which I can only assume would be called "sub-paycheck-to-paycheck.":) For example, if I were to get laid off, it would take almost a month for our savings account (the one the bills all
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And NEVER trust the government, because they're the only group that can legally kill you and everyone you ever met "for the common good".
I call BS.
First of all, you seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding that "The Government" and "The People" are one and the same. The Government isn't some mystical, magical group of people dropped off by aliens to govern us, THEY ARE US. They worked in bakeries before we elected them. They went to school with us. They live down the street from us. Government are people too! They work for us, they represent us. They're not some enemy force not to be trusted, they are simply the tangible entity that represents a populace on issue in which individual representation would be impractical.
And they most certainly CANNOT "legally kill you and everyone you ever met," for ANY reason. You seem to think that the government routinely operates outside the law and is unaccountable. While I concede that on some financial indiscretions, they may be getting off scot-free, they most definitely do not operate above the law when it comes to killing USAmerican citizens. "Enemy combatants," maybe (although I haven't heard of anyone in Guantanamo bay being executed, along with "everyone they ever met," yet). But we're talking about USAmerican citizens here.
What if I lived in Pakistan and wasn't a Muslim (or Buddist, or whatever) and WANTED to look at porn, but couldn't because the government regulated my internet traffic?
Move.
The government represents the people. If the government has decreed that "porn is bad, we must block it," then that is the equivalent of society saying that porn is bad. Over here, our government says "Marijuana is bad." To use your own analogy, what if you were a non-Christian living in the US and wanted to smoke Marijuana? What an outrage!
If you live in a culture, you play by their rules. If you don't like their rules, you leave, or try to work within the system in place to change the rules. It's as simple as that.
Well, at least, it should be as simple as that. If that country's values happen to conflict with the US's values, and if that country happens to be sitting atop a vast collection of hydrocarbons, then the US will come in and alter that country's values for you, and you may not have to leave in order to indulge in your vices. But that generally happens quite rarely, so I wouldn't count on that.
*Sigh*
If one were to "literally" keep an eye on everything in the store, 24/7, then that would mean that they would have an actual eyeball resting on all their inventory. That's what "literally" means. It means you mean exactly what you said.
"Keep an eye on things" is an expression that doesn't mean you're actually pressing your eyeball up against something - rather, it means that you will watch something. However, when you say you are "LITERALLY keeping an eye on something," then you are saying you don't mean the expression, but rather your comment should be taken literally. That you actually do have an eyeball that is physically touching the item.
That is why I, and others, have picked on your comment.
Don't feel bad, you are not the only one who uses "literally" incorrectly in this way.
I think you need to go and learn what the word "literally" means. You used it when you meant to use "figuratively."
This gives me an idea. Up here in Canada, we don't have the protection of a national "Do Not Call" registry. But it *is* still illegal to call people on phones for which they are charged to receive calls (eg., cell phones).
I see here an opportunity for the telecom companies in Canada to increase profits, while stamping out annoying telemarketers. What if they offered a "service" whereby customers could opt-in to a model where on top of their monthly local access fee, they pay an additional 1 cent for every call received. This would add up to at most a couple extra dollars a month for the vast majority of customers, but it would now make it illegal for telemarketers to call them on their land lines. People who are stingy and don't want to pay to receive calls could stick with their existing service. The phone companies would increase revenues by a percent or so, and telemarketers would be shut down.
A capitalist solution where everybody wins, instead of a politcal, legal solution. I like it! What do you guys think?
ppl don't see themselves as low lifes, and are entitled to the efforts of others.
I've seen it in [...] welfare and unemployment "Where's my check?"
Uhm, laid-off workers who've paid into the system are "entitled" to welfare and unemployment.
Mark my words - nothing will happen. Come Monday, they won't even mention it on the news. It won't be being discussed on Slashdot, or, if it is, people will be begging someone to come up with even a single screenshot of a defaced site. Nothing will happen. No sites will be defaced. This is just some kid who put up a goofy webpage that was taken down within a few hours - there is no organization of hackers preparing to unleash a coordinated attack on our web servers. There's just us. Trust me, this is being blown waaay out of proportion.
Nothing will happen. Not a single site. Nothing.
Trancievers in every street light.
Extremely high-powered tranceivers? Remember - these tags are passive. You need to be within a few inches (or extremely powerful) to read a signal much farther than that. And of course, there's interference.
How long will it take for DMCA-like laws that make that practice illegal?
Is it presently illegal to remove barcodes from products you purchase? No? Then what makes you think laws could/would be enacted to make an analogous act illegal?
Yes, and I can't wait for organised crime to automatically skim a lil' bit off the top of all our checking accounts as we walk past 'em. Not much, just a few bucks per person, walk around in a crowd and you'd make a few thousand dollars in minutes.
Are you familiar with the concept of an instant-debit tag? I'm not sure what it would be called in your neck of the woods, but up here in Canada, Esso (a gas retailer) gives away these little, black, 1.5 inch wands that attach to your keychain and are linked to your credit card. They're called the "Speedpass." When I pull into an Esso station to order gas, I simply wave this wand over top of the reader at the pump, then grab the nozzle and start fueling. When I'm done, I grab my receipt and drive away. Alternatively, I can go into the attached convenience store, throw some items on the counter, the clerk scans them, then wave my keys in front of another reader, grab my purchases, and walk away. The gas/purchases are automatically billed to my credit card. No buttons, no signatures, just wave, beep, and go.
These devices are very widespread up here. Now, according to your level of paranoia, I should be fearful of walking in large crowds, in case someone is walking around with a reader, waves it by my pocket, and charges me $1500. That hasn't happened. In fact, I've never heard of such a theft occurring to ANYONE, and like I said, these "Speedpasses" are everywhere. It would certainly be fruitful for someone to undertake such an endeavor.
So I don't need to offer theories and logic to counter your ridiculous, paranoid fear: I can simply refer to EXISTING REALITY. These devices are out there NOW, and the abuse you fear is not happening. Your fears are unfounded. They offer convenience and speed, with zero incidence of fraud, to date.
The original message was received at Wed, 25 Jun 2003 17:33:18 -0400 (EDT)
from [12.22.196.75]
*** ATTENTION ***
Your e-mail is being returned to you because there was a problem with its
delivery. The address which was undeliverable is listed in the section
labeled: "----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----".
The reason your mail is being returned to you is listed in the section
labeled: "----- Transcript of Session Follows -----".
The line beginning with "
----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>> DATA
Please see the attached zip file for details.
Attached, of course, was a zip file named "your_details.zip." Skeptical, yet curious, I saved the file to my desktop and extracted the contents. It was a
I didn't run the file, but only because I know how tricky these guys can be. I must say that this was the most convincing virus email I've ever seen, and I can easily see how many people would be fooled. That doesn't make them morons.
Actually, the "pipedot.org" is still available. I was pretty damn tempted to spend the $14.99 and register it, but I don't care *that* much about the joke.
How is being asked to pay for what breaking the law "extortion?" If I park in a handicapped spot because I don't feel like walking very far (I'm not handicapped), and a cop writes me a ticket, is that "extortion?"
some clever enterprising person who is more in tune with music listeners and movie goers want would step in start there own label or studio and start making money by providing music and movies in a way that the customer wants.
That is to say, for free.
They wouldn't make the same obscene profits that the record companies and movie studios currently make
Then how would they convince investors to pony up the venture capital required to get off the ground?
Instead of listening to their customers and trying to make the best of the situation, [The RIAA is] suing them.
No they're not - they're suing the ones who download the music for free, not the ones who actually go out and buy CDs. They are two very different groups. People who pirate their music are not their "customers," in any sense of the word. People who download music pay no money to the RIAA. Whenever they want a song, they just download it. They are no more "customers" of the RIAA than a shoplifter is a "customer" of Walmart.
So because "copyright violation" is subtly different from "stealing," its OK?
I've read that "Murder" is different from "Manslaughter" - which one is morally acceptable? I keep forgetting.
Bill [I'm maknig these names up] has a wife who has terminal cancer. The only cure is a $2000 bottle of medicine that a local store owner has. Despite putting in tons of effort, he is only able to raise $1000 (ok, a bit unlikely, so scale up the price and abount raised if you prefer). So he breaks in and steals the medicine. Is he in the clear, and why?
...
I think that he is, at least as long as he left the $1000 he had behind, and especially if he later paid the remaining half. So I don't think it's black and white.
What if the pharmacy he stole that $2000 medicine from was already on the rocks, and the loss of such an expensive inventory item was the straw that broke the camel's back? The Pharmacy goes under, the 5 cashiers and 3 pharmacists all lose their jobs, two of them have trouble finding new jobs and lose their homes, one of them was trying to save up money for her own son's cancer medicine, but now can't afford it
You can't ignore the ripple effect in justifying immoral actions. "The end does not justify the means."
How the **** am I supposed to support indie music WHEN I CAN'T BUY THIER CDS because no store can carry them?
Stores can and do carry them.
When radio cannot play them for fear of RIAA retailation?
Radio stations are free to play them. There is no RIAA "retaliation" to fear.
Break the cartel and these guys won't be indie music, they'll be mainstream.
Unlikely. Where there's money to be made, there will be suits and marketing types swarming, even if the so-called "cartel" is technically divested.
It's a funny joke, but it's completely unrealistic. Right now, a bunch of people are downloading movies online. Some of these movies, they may have actually paid to see in the theatres. If the MPAA is able to successfully stamp out movie-trading on P2P networks (highly unlikely, but stay with me here), do you really think those downloaders are just going to stop watching movies?
Newsflash: most people don't care about it that much. Especially since deep down, the MPAA has an excellent point. It is stealing, and when the jig is up and the fun's over, and my wife says "Let's go see 'Sweet Home Alabama 2'", am I going to say "No, I'm boycotting those MPAA bastards because the shut down Kazaa."? Not likely. She'd look at me like I dropped my tinfoil hat. "I haven't seen you this upset since I accidentally shrunk your Klingon uniform," she'd say.
No thanks, welcome to the real world, it's no big deal. I think it's pretty obvious that most theives^H^H^H^H^Hmovie downloaders would return to the theatres, and it would pay off for the MPAA and big producers.
This is ridiculous. My point was that the privacy implications of these tags are negligible, considering all the other pervasive methods of surveillance that already exist and hold the same potential for abuse.
Going back to our hotel room example, where Bob is cheating on his wife, with Nancy. Now, presumeably, Bob is supposed to be somewhere else, but instead, he's at the local Howard Johnson having a quickie with Nancy. The parent poster used this as an example of how this tracking technology could be abused (i.e., his wife could notice that Bob's underwear is in the same room as a pair of underwear belonging to his secretary).
RIGHT NOW, _without_ these RFID tags, she could (in theory) already figure this out, through several ways. She could follow him. She could track his credit card and notice he just rented a room at the hotel. She could track his cell phone's location and notice that he's not at the office, where he said he'd be. She could commandeer the hotel's surveillance tapes. She could get a room in the building across the street and use a long-range audio antenna to eavesdrop through the window.
But for some reason, no one seems concerned about any of that. In particular, the "credit card tracking" and "cell phone tracking" exist TODAY and are just as good candidates for abuse as these RFID tags, but you seem OK with those "invasions."
My confusion is why you are OK with those types of potentials for abuse, but not with RFIDs, especially considering that RFIDs are passive devices and can only be scanned at VERY close range (i.e., inches), and thus hiding scanners everywhere would be extremely expensive and impractical, yet people carry active transmitters (cell phones) with them all the time, and you don't seem at all concerned about the privacy issues surrounding THAT.
Why the disparity? Why all the paranoid FUD about a simple NUMBER with the ability to shout itself out to a range of a few inches? It's just a UPC symbol that can be read (at close range) even when line-of-sight is obscured. What's the big deal? Don't you see why this is nothing?
My point is that you wouldn't KNOW that the owner of RFID1 was "Bob" and the owner of RFID2 was "Nancy," unless you had access to the following databases:
1. The customer and inventory databases of the store Bob bought his underwear from.
2. The customer and inventory databases of the store Nancy bought her underwear from (probably not the same store as in 1.)
3. Possibly the bank and credit card databases (likely to be HIGHLY protected), if the store's database only stored the card numbers, and not the person's full names.
Also, if either of them paid cash, then it breaks down, because their name would be impossible to connect to the ID. My point is that sure, lots of things are "connected" nowadays, but I can't just go and peruse Visa's client database, nor do I have any kind of access to Walmart's inventory system. All of these proprietary databases, especially ones housing confidential financial information, are required by law to be protected from intrusion. They're not just going to start offering that credit/bank information up for every hotel and resort that wants to cross-reference clothing info to detect adulterers.
What's the big deal here?
They wouldn't know it was you, unless you paid for your purchase with a card of some sort. If you paid cash, then they'd have no idea who you are. Their ability to track you would depend on being able to link the ID of the item with your credit information, which is unlikely, since the surveillance entity would probably not have access to either database.
This is nothing more than paranoid FUD.
First of all, that same couple would have been seen entering and exiting the hotel on surveillance cameras. Why is no one concerned about their affairs being exposed by the security cameras? Because no one cares.
Secondly, these RFIDs are passive transmitters, meaning the receiver would have to be within a few inches to receive the signal. Are hotels going to embed covert readers in every bed in their hotel, just to nab adulterers? Why would they do that, when (tongue-in-cheek) that's a large part of their business?
Thirdly, the RFID is just a number - how would the hotel know that item 38547857594858767593747 is a pair of underwear, and item 4579871248974210 is a pair of panties? They don't have access to Calvin Klein's and Victoria's Secrets' databases.
Take off your tinfoil hat. This is nothing more than a barcode-reader system that'll save manufacturers and retailers time and money. You're not that interesting. No one cares where you go every second of the day, or what you're wearing. The government has bigger fish to fry.
One final slap in your face: on my system, almost all of the .EXE tools in my jdk/bin folder are within a few hundred bytes of each other in size (they're all about 29 KB). Don't you think that's pretty amazing? First of all, to fit an entire compiler in just 29 KB of executable, but also, for 20 different tools and utilities, which perform dramatically different tasks, to all be almost the exact same size???
Do you think maybe it's because they're all just native bootstrappers for different Java programs, and thus, are all almost the exact same, identical C source code (just calling different Java classes)?
How could you make such an ignorant post and not know this stuff?
First of all, the Java chip was and is marketed. It is present in thousands of mobile devices and dumb terminals.
Secondly, you clearly demonstrated your total and utter ignorance when you said:
[Sun] then hired coders to implement a "Java compiler in Java". Result ? The Java compiler in Java was 20 TIMES SLOWER than the Java compiler written in C!
Why would Sun "then" hire Java programmers, when they already employed the very creators of the language? Who knew Java better than those that already worked for Sun and who had created it? Why would they then go out and hire some more Java programmers to re-write the Java compiler?
Finally, also picking on your last, ludicrous statement, the Java compiler was always already written in Java. Its in the com.sun.tools.java.Main class. The Java compiler is a circular-recursive parser, but I wouldn't expect you to know what that means, so let me break it down for you. It means that the language's compiler is written in the language itself.
The Java INTERPRETER is the one that's written in C. You know, that little java.dll file - that's the Java interpreter. It's written in C. When you run "javac" to compile some Java files, all javac.exe is is a native bootstrapper which loads and executes the Java compiler from the tools.jar file. How do you think they ensure that the Java compiler behaves exactly the same on every platform? Because it's the same compiler - the exact same code - written in Java!
Either you're an incredibly ignorant moron who knows just enough about Java to cause some damage, or I've just been successfully trolled.
Orrin has taken over 175K so far just this year from the TV/Movies/Music lobby
Orrin is one of the WORST congressmen this country has EVER had. Bought off like every other congressman but he apparently is not only paid off but stupid about the legislation that he introduces.
Uhm, for a guy who claims to know so much about Orrin Hatch's "secrets," why do you keep calling him a "Congressman?"
He's a Senator, genius. Guess they forgot to mention that on the "Drudge Report," or "Open Secrets," or whatever tabloid is is that you consult for your source of ready-made, controversial opinions.
In the days following Sept 11th, Congress could have passed a bill stating that [Arabs] be summarily executed by the military", and I doubt anyone would have raised a finger or a care.
What?!? Do you honestly believe that? Truly? I mean, come on, that's absurd. If you sincerely believe that your elected representatives are that incredibly stupid, and that your fellow citizens are so amazingly ignorant as to not even question legalizing genocide, then why are you still there? I mean, sure, people get emotional and reactionary in the wake of catastrophes of such magnitude, but do you honestly believe that a majority of your elected elite would be so swept up in emotional turmoil as to completely lose their sense of such fundamental values? I mean, come on, surely you realize what a gross exaggeration this is.
You're going to put emergency fund money into a mutual fund?
:) For example, if I were to get laid off, it would take almost a month for our savings account (the one the bills all
Sure, why not? Obviously not a risky one though. There are very stable, very low risk mutual funds that consistently yield around 5-6%, even in a down market like this one. Of course, during a bull market, you'll still only likely be getting 5-6%, but my point is that that beats the hell out of the 1% you'd get by letting that money rot in a savings account.
An emergency fund is not for 10 years from now -- it's for right NOW
Yes, what's your point? In my example, in the "right now" as you put it (i.e., the beginning of the example), both of my fictional people had the same amount of money - $15,000. If an emergency comes up "right NOW", then they'd both be equally well-equipped to weather it. But if things went well for a while, then in the long run, my way would prove to be better.
As for your comment about the money being easily accessible and not decreasing in value, unregistered mutual funds are easily accessible (it might take a week, tops, to get at that money - that's what the line of credit is for), and they are stable, if you stick to the solid, low-risk ones.
What if you'd invested your emergency fund in 1999? Well, you'd be rather screwed now if you needed it, with values down anywhere from 10-50%.
Some funds have gone up in that period. Gold, oil, money markets - the low-risk mutual funds will be a balanced mix of these rock-solid economic components. Don't misinterpret me - I'm not saying you should put your emergency fund into Cisco stock, or the CIBC Technology Fund. I'm advocating putting that money in a low-risk, low-yield mutual fund.
And touching retirement money in 401k's, IRAs (ROTH or otherwise), etc. is about the stupidiest thing you can do, period.
I'm not talking about taking money from registered funds. I'm not completely familiar with IRAs and 401k's, but here in Canada, the analogous investment vehicle is an RRSP, which has an annual maximum contribution limit. So you max that out (about 10 grand), and sure, that's your "untouchable" retirement money. But after that, you put your emergency money in unregistered investments.
Incidentally, I wouldn't say touching your retirement money is the "stupidest thing you can do." I borrowed part of my home's down payment from my RRSP. If I hadn't done that, we wouldn't have been able to afford the house. Under this plan, I have 10 years to pay it all back. In my case, this worked out in my favour, since a large part of my RRSP is Nortel stock (I'm a former Nortel employee, company matching contributions and all that). If I'd left that money in there, it would have shrunk down to next to nothing. Instead, I now have that equity in my house, which has gone up in value by about 10% in 2 years, by comparison. But of course, I concede that this is merely a gamble that worked out in my favour, and doesn't constitute any investment advice.
Oh, and BTW, you're commiting fraud if you touch that line of credit once you're laid off.
I'm not so sure about that. Your line of credit is based on many factors, not just your employment status. In my case, my home equity and existing assets (combined with my employed spouse) would most likely work in my favour, if I were to be laid off, and they wouldn't revoke my credit line. Besides, like I said, you'd only need to use it until you get at that mutual fund money, which would take maybe a week, tops. Then you pay the line of credit back.
And if you need that much money that soon after being laid off, and can't wait a week, then you are living DANGEROUSLY close to your means, and have somehow managed to find a region below "paycheck-to-paycheck," which I can only assume would be called "sub-paycheck-to-paycheck."