I could have used better terminology, but I was in a bit of a hurry at the time. What you described (not the wannabe variant, though) is basically what I meant when I said "white-hat" -- the people who aren't trying to break other people's networks, etc., but are trying to see what cool things they can do with a given piece of hardware and/or software.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this lately, and you are, of course, somewhat correct but you are also somewhat wrong.
In what time period would I rather have lived? At what point in history was America a better country than it is today? Well...when founded, slavery was rampant and women were only marginally better off, so the first 100 years or so is pretty much out. Even after slavery was abolished, we were still a highly racist country for roughly another hundred years so that wasn't much better, either. We won't even talk about "Manifest Destiny", the Marshall Plan or McCarthyism. Yet despite those problems, the '80s weren't any better. By then, we believed our own BS and were busy bringing "liberty" and "democracy" (by force, if need be) to Panama, Grenada and Nicaragua. Yep, that was a shining beacon for our ideals... </sarc, if that wasn't obvious> By the '90s, we were starting to implode. Greed, corporatism, and such was setting the stage for the economic mess that we are in now. After 9/11, the entire nation started goose-stepping into line behind the military-industrial machine, leaving us where we are now.
So yeah, you're right. We've set lofty goals for ourselves and consistently failed to reach them.
Nevertheless, the fact that our government and even our society has always proved to be considerably less than perfect does not disprove the fact that our culture still embraces the ideal of a fair, just, and honorable society. Just because we haven't yet reached that goal in no way diminishes the value of that ideal.
For the most part, I agree with you. However, there is one thing that trumps the Constitution on my list of priorities. When the government, whether democratically elected or not, begins to sufficiently persecute my family and loved ones unjustly, I will take whatever action I can to put an end to it, including, if need be, violent revolution.
The Constitution is indeed very, very important to me, but ultimately it is only a means to an end (namely, justice and liberty).
Carter may have been a screw-up, but he, at least, wasn't flat out evil. On the worst-presidents-of-all-time scale, I'd say Nixon, Bush and Obama easily surpass Carter.
What, exactly, have you been smoking for the last three years? The Dems are no different than the Neo-Cons. Both sides lie, cheat and steal to hold on to their power. Obama campaigned on "Hope and Change", but what, exactly, has he done differently than his predecessor? Bush authorized warrantless wiretapping and Obama promised to vote against telecom immunity for that...until he was elected president, and then, as one of his last actions while still he senator, he voted for the very bill he promised to oppose. Bush (rightfully) got raked over the coals for the Iraq War; Obama now is dodging the War Powers Act so we can get involved in Libya. Under Bush, TSA/DHS was created; under Obama, TSA initiated the AIT scanners/pat-downs at the airports.
Yeah, you can nitpick social issues like abortion and stem-cell research, but when push comes to shove, there really isn't a lot of difference between the two parties. Both of them are eager to drive the country to insolvency. Both endorse handouts to their corporate backers. Neither one is willing to make the hard choices that will get this country out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. Both parties are busy wiping their backsides with the Constitution while making the federal bureaucracy as bloated as possible, and neither party really gives a rip about how badly they trample the average joes like you and me in the mean time. If you think the Democrats are even remotely interested in making your life better, then, my friend, YOU are the one who hasn't been paying attention lately.
Well, think about it for a minute. Assuming you actually mean hackers in the white-hat meaning rather than the black-hat meaning, hackers are the ones who are buying hardware for the joy of seeing what they can do with it. It's a hobby. Consequently, are the hackers going to buy the $1300 OS-X laptop or $500 iPad so they can potentially brick the thing?
I was seriously looking at a Nook Color so I could root it and install Android until I happened to pick up a Dell Streak 7 as a door prize at a conference. Had I not gotten the Streak for free, I probably would have a Nook right now for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Would I be willing to pay $500 for a tablet? No way, especially not when I can get a netbook for under $300. However, I'd pay $149 for one, even if I had to root it to make it useful.
I'm just guessing here, but my suspicion is that B&N really couldn't care less what you do with the Nook provided 1) you keep buying their content and 2) you don't call them for help when/if you brick the thing.
Point taken. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Ek vs. US that an X-Ray scan requires the same burden of proof as a strip search.
Ok. That sets the burden of proof. It doesn't yet prove that the scanning is an unreasonable search. You've just moved the argument from "is this unreasonable" to "has it met THIS level of reaonableness?" You still cannot claim that the prohibition is being ignored because you haven't yet shown that THIS kind of search fails to meet the same standard as another type of search.
How do you figure? In Ek vs. US, a drug smuggler is caught by the cops, based upon a tip from an informant. The cops used a device that uses X-Rays to image parts of his body that are not visible to the unaided eye to determine that he was, in fact, smuggling drugs. TSA, on the other hand, having no grounds for suspicion more damning than that they have bought an airline ticket, is also employing a device that emits X-Rays to image EVERY FREAKING PERSON WALKING THROUGH THE SECURITY LINE (assuming that the checkpoint in question is equipped with an AIT scanner and that they don't opt out; does not apply to lines equipped only with magnetic detectors). If an X-Ray search in one case is "unreasonable" without what the 9th Circuit Court called "a higher burden of proof", I fail to see how routinely deploying a similar technology with no burden of proof whatsoever could even remotely be considered "reasonable".
You need to argue that the search is unreasonable, not that they are ignoring you when you claim it is unreasonable.
Point taken. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Ek vs. US that an X-Ray scan requires the same burden of proof as a strip search. The AIT scanners (some of them, anyway) use backscatter X-Rays to perform the search. IANAL and all that, but it would seem logical to me that the argument was settled long before TSA started bringing AIT scanners to the airports. Ergo, they are ignoring the prohibition.
The underwear bomber boarded his US-bound flight in Amsterdam. The shoe bomber boarded his flight in Paris, France, after being detained by French National Police. TSA was involved with neither one.
Tenous, at best. While TSA personally might not have been involved, the requirement for screening -- and the requirements for what level of screening must be met -- is established by TSA, whether or not the flight originated within the country. Even in the U.S., airports may, at their option, use private security firms rather than TSA to conduct the screening. In other words, the standards for boarding the flight from Amsterdam or the flight from Paris were exactly the same as the standards for boarding a flight in the U.S. And those standards were insufficient to either provide a deterrent or to prevent would-be terrorists from boarding the two airplanes.
Bruce Scheier cites a number of sources here. The short answer is that it is very, very unlikely. First, the chemicals are difficult to work with under the best of circumstances. An airplane is not the best of circumstances. Second, the chemicals, being volatile organic compounds, have strong, unpleasant odors. While people may be expecting "strong, unpleasant" odors to be emanating from a bathroom, these would be unusual enough that even the least observant passengers on the airplane would become more than just a little suspicious. Third, you can't just mix up a batch of binary explosives in a few minutes. It is a long, drawn-out process, and as the line to the loo began to grow suspiciously long, someone would be bound to intervene.
Bottom line: We've already lost the war on terror. TSA is a political entity, and that means that every time some potential terrorist yells, "Boo!" TSA jumps, because if EVER, even once, they don't jump and something does happen, there will be a lot of Congress Critters on the streets looking for work. Consequently, the terrorists don't have to blow anything up ever again. All they have to do is let it be known that maybe they are thinking about some new attack vector and our fear will do the rest for them.
You raise a valid point. However, I would argue that, before the government has the right to ignore the prohibition upon unreasonable search in the 4th Amendment and before the government has the right to subject you to potentially dangerous radiation, the burden of proof is upon them to show that what they are doing actually provides a deterrent effect.
Furthermore, since there have been at least two would-be terrorists since TSA took over airport security (the "underwear bomber" and the "shoe bomber"), both of whom slipped past TSA and were stopped by other passengers on the airliners, there is a valid counter-argument to the deterrent effect. This is even more apparent when you compare the number of people who have mistakenly (we hope...) carried weapons through TSA checkpoints despite body and baggage scanners, metal detectors and "enhanced patdowns."
In light of the evidence available, I am skeptical of any claims that TSA actually provides any kind of deterrent...except for people like me, who are deterred from flying at all due to the TSA's increasingly outrageous behaviour.
The transmission method of HIV is also pretty well known, so assuming that you have an ounce of common sense in your head, it's not terribly difficult to remain at least somewhat protected from the disease. No unprotected sex outside of monogamous relationships, hospitals screen blood before performing transfusions, use rubber gloves when potentially coming into contact with bodily fluids, etc. It's not 100% safe (what is?) but it's a far, far cry from your hysteria-inducing "It's only a matter of time before we are all infected" claim.
Look, I totally agree with the "teach a man to fish" metaphor. But sometimes, when you are starving and riddled with disease, you won't survive long enough to learn to how to better take care of yourself unless someone gives you a fish or two along the way.
I'm cynical enough to agree that this tech could certainly be abused in such a way as to create exactly the kind of subservient welfare class you are describing, but I'm still optimistic enough to be excited about a positive use for UAV/UAS technology.
Do you think people starving in the desert are they because they simply like to live there? Do you really think it's just that easy? Pack up and move to the big city, where there's a Wal-Mart and Safeway on every street corner! Voila! Problem solved! Man...why didn't they think of that already? </sarc>
I agree that blimps have significant problems, especially in poor weather conditions (if you're fighting much of a wind, your blimp will be going backwards, no matter how much you wind the engines up), but I'm not so sure that people are all that afraid of a hydrogen-filled bag as long as they aren't on-board.
Wrong budget, instead of trying to get money from the medical development people, they should just get it from the spooks/black ops people.
Bah. Why are we so eager to fund the military-industrial complex, bringing death and destruction around the globe, instead of trying to reduce suffering in the world? Are we really doing ourselves any favors by bombing the entire third world? Really?
Look, I'm old enough to know that I'm just a wide-eyed, naive dreamer, but I really can't help but hope that eventually, we'll grow out of this phase the human race is in.
Slashdot Mirror
I could have used better terminology, but I was in a bit of a hurry at the time. What you described (not the wannabe variant, though) is basically what I meant when I said "white-hat" -- the people who aren't trying to break other people's networks, etc., but are trying to see what cool things they can do with a given piece of hardware and/or software.
Because Obama put an end to that nonsense the minute he set foot in the Oval Office.
Oh, wait...
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this lately, and you are, of course, somewhat correct but you are also somewhat wrong.
In what time period would I rather have lived? At what point in history was America a better country than it is today? Well...when founded, slavery was rampant and women were only marginally better off, so the first 100 years or so is pretty much out. Even after slavery was abolished, we were still a highly racist country for roughly another hundred years so that wasn't much better, either. We won't even talk about "Manifest Destiny", the Marshall Plan or McCarthyism. Yet despite those problems, the '80s weren't any better. By then, we believed our own BS and were busy bringing "liberty" and "democracy" (by force, if need be) to Panama, Grenada and Nicaragua. Yep, that was a shining beacon for our ideals... </sarc, if that wasn't obvious> By the '90s, we were starting to implode. Greed, corporatism, and such was setting the stage for the economic mess that we are in now. After 9/11, the entire nation started goose-stepping into line behind the military-industrial machine, leaving us where we are now.
So yeah, you're right. We've set lofty goals for ourselves and consistently failed to reach them.
Nevertheless, the fact that our government and even our society has always proved to be considerably less than perfect does not disprove the fact that our culture still embraces the ideal of a fair, just, and honorable society. Just because we haven't yet reached that goal in no way diminishes the value of that ideal.
For the most part, I agree with you. However, there is one thing that trumps the Constitution on my list of priorities. When the government, whether democratically elected or not, begins to sufficiently persecute my family and loved ones unjustly, I will take whatever action I can to put an end to it, including, if need be, violent revolution.
The Constitution is indeed very, very important to me, but ultimately it is only a means to an end (namely, justice and liberty).
...and Odie?
Carter may have been a screw-up, but he, at least, wasn't flat out evil. On the worst-presidents-of-all-time scale, I'd say Nixon, Bush and Obama easily surpass Carter.
What, exactly, have you been smoking for the last three years? The Dems are no different than the Neo-Cons. Both sides lie, cheat and steal to hold on to their power. Obama campaigned on "Hope and Change", but what, exactly, has he done differently than his predecessor? Bush authorized warrantless wiretapping and Obama promised to vote against telecom immunity for that...until he was elected president, and then, as one of his last actions while still he senator, he voted for the very bill he promised to oppose. Bush (rightfully) got raked over the coals for the Iraq War; Obama now is dodging the War Powers Act so we can get involved in Libya. Under Bush, TSA/DHS was created; under Obama, TSA initiated the AIT scanners/pat-downs at the airports.
Yeah, you can nitpick social issues like abortion and stem-cell research, but when push comes to shove, there really isn't a lot of difference between the two parties. Both of them are eager to drive the country to insolvency. Both endorse handouts to their corporate backers. Neither one is willing to make the hard choices that will get this country out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. Both parties are busy wiping their backsides with the Constitution while making the federal bureaucracy as bloated as possible, and neither party really gives a rip about how badly they trample the average joes like you and me in the mean time. If you think the Democrats are even remotely interested in making your life better, then, my friend, YOU are the one who hasn't been paying attention lately.
Well, think about it for a minute. Assuming you actually mean hackers in the white-hat meaning rather than the black-hat meaning, hackers are the ones who are buying hardware for the joy of seeing what they can do with it. It's a hobby. Consequently, are the hackers going to buy the $1300 OS-X laptop or $500 iPad so they can potentially brick the thing?
Yep.
I was seriously looking at a Nook Color so I could root it and install Android until I happened to pick up a Dell Streak 7 as a door prize at a conference. Had I not gotten the Streak for free, I probably would have a Nook right now for exactly the reasons you mentioned. Would I be willing to pay $500 for a tablet? No way, especially not when I can get a netbook for under $300. However, I'd pay $149 for one, even if I had to root it to make it useful.
I'm just guessing here, but my suspicion is that B&N really couldn't care less what you do with the Nook provided 1) you keep buying their content and 2) you don't call them for help when/if you brick the thing.
There's a FA?!?!?!
Point taken. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Ek vs. US that an X-Ray scan requires the same burden of proof as a strip search.
Ok. That sets the burden of proof. It doesn't yet prove that the scanning is an unreasonable search. You've just moved the argument from "is this unreasonable" to "has it met THIS level of reaonableness?" You still cannot claim that the prohibition is being ignored because you haven't yet shown that THIS kind of search fails to meet the same standard as another type of search.
How do you figure? In Ek vs. US, a drug smuggler is caught by the cops, based upon a tip from an informant. The cops used a device that uses X-Rays to image parts of his body that are not visible to the unaided eye to determine that he was, in fact, smuggling drugs. TSA, on the other hand, having no grounds for suspicion more damning than that they have bought an airline ticket, is also employing a device that emits X-Rays to image EVERY FREAKING PERSON WALKING THROUGH THE SECURITY LINE (assuming that the checkpoint in question is equipped with an AIT scanner and that they don't opt out; does not apply to lines equipped only with magnetic detectors). If an X-Ray search in one case is "unreasonable" without what the 9th Circuit Court called "a higher burden of proof", I fail to see how routinely deploying a similar technology with no burden of proof whatsoever could even remotely be considered "reasonable".
Whoosh...
You need to argue that the search is unreasonable, not that they are ignoring you when you claim it is unreasonable.
Point taken. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Ek vs. US that an X-Ray scan requires the same burden of proof as a strip search. The AIT scanners (some of them, anyway) use backscatter X-Rays to perform the search. IANAL and all that, but it would seem logical to me that the argument was settled long before TSA started bringing AIT scanners to the airports. Ergo, they are ignoring the prohibition.
The underwear bomber boarded his US-bound flight in Amsterdam. The shoe bomber boarded his flight in Paris, France, after being detained by French National Police. TSA was involved with neither one.
Tenous, at best. While TSA personally might not have been involved, the requirement for screening -- and the requirements for what level of screening must be met -- is established by TSA, whether or not the flight originated within the country. Even in the U.S., airports may, at their option, use private security firms rather than TSA to conduct the screening. In other words, the standards for boarding the flight from Amsterdam or the flight from Paris were exactly the same as the standards for boarding a flight in the U.S. And those standards were insufficient to either provide a deterrent or to prevent would-be terrorists from boarding the two airplanes.
Or flush a small cube of sodium metal down the toilet?
Bruce Scheier cites a number of sources here. The short answer is that it is very, very unlikely. First, the chemicals are difficult to work with under the best of circumstances. An airplane is not the best of circumstances. Second, the chemicals, being volatile organic compounds, have strong, unpleasant odors. While people may be expecting "strong, unpleasant" odors to be emanating from a bathroom, these would be unusual enough that even the least observant passengers on the airplane would become more than just a little suspicious. Third, you can't just mix up a batch of binary explosives in a few minutes. It is a long, drawn-out process, and as the line to the loo began to grow suspiciously long, someone would be bound to intervene.
Bottom line: We've already lost the war on terror. TSA is a political entity, and that means that every time some potential terrorist yells, "Boo!" TSA jumps, because if EVER, even once, they don't jump and something does happen, there will be a lot of Congress Critters on the streets looking for work. Consequently, the terrorists don't have to blow anything up ever again. All they have to do is let it be known that maybe they are thinking about some new attack vector and our fear will do the rest for them.
Behavioral profiling is effective.
Considering that TSA can't even weed out criminals during the hiring process I don't have much faith that TSA agents will prove much more adept at picking out terrorists in a 30 second interview prior to boarding an airplane.
You raise a valid point. However, I would argue that, before the government has the right to ignore the prohibition upon unreasonable search in the 4th Amendment and before the government has the right to subject you to potentially dangerous radiation, the burden of proof is upon them to show that what they are doing actually provides a deterrent effect.
Furthermore, since there have been at least two would-be terrorists since TSA took over airport security (the "underwear bomber" and the "shoe bomber"), both of whom slipped past TSA and were stopped by other passengers on the airliners, there is a valid counter-argument to the deterrent effect. This is even more apparent when you compare the number of people who have mistakenly (we hope...) carried weapons through TSA checkpoints despite body and baggage scanners, metal detectors and "enhanced patdowns."
In light of the evidence available, I am skeptical of any claims that TSA actually provides any kind of deterrent...except for people like me, who are deterred from flying at all due to the TSA's increasingly outrageous behaviour.
Meh.
The transmission method of HIV is also pretty well known, so assuming that you have an ounce of common sense in your head, it's not terribly difficult to remain at least somewhat protected from the disease. No unprotected sex outside of monogamous relationships, hospitals screen blood before performing transfusions, use rubber gloves when potentially coming into contact with bodily fluids, etc. It's not 100% safe (what is?) but it's a far, far cry from your hysteria-inducing "It's only a matter of time before we are all infected" claim.
In light of your sig, that comment is pretty funny...
Look, I totally agree with the "teach a man to fish" metaphor. But sometimes, when you are starving and riddled with disease, you won't survive long enough to learn to how to better take care of yourself unless someone gives you a fish or two along the way.
I'm cynical enough to agree that this tech could certainly be abused in such a way as to create exactly the kind of subservient welfare class you are describing, but I'm still optimistic enough to be excited about a positive use for UAV/UAS technology.
Seriously?
Do you think people starving in the desert are they because they simply like to live there? Do you really think it's just that easy? Pack up and move to the big city, where there's a Wal-Mart and Safeway on every street corner! Voila! Problem solved! Man...why didn't they think of that already? </sarc>
sed "s/algorithm/acronym/"
I agree that blimps have significant problems, especially in poor weather conditions (if you're fighting much of a wind, your blimp will be going backwards, no matter how much you wind the engines up), but I'm not so sure that people are all that afraid of a hydrogen-filled bag as long as they aren't on-board.
Wrong budget, instead of trying to get money from the medical development people, they should just get it from the spooks/black ops people.
Bah. Why are we so eager to fund the military-industrial complex, bringing death and destruction around the globe, instead of trying to reduce suffering in the world? Are we really doing ourselves any favors by bombing the entire third world? Really?
Look, I'm old enough to know that I'm just a wide-eyed, naive dreamer, but I really can't help but hope that eventually, we'll grow out of this phase the human race is in.
I have to wonder what the masses did the first guy who brought home fire.
Burned him at the stake?