In my (limited) experience, this is what usually happens:
Customer needs new software
Customer asks developers for a quote on the software
Customer balks at the price of skilled developers, and chooses cheap offshore labor (or reeaaaallly green local developer)
Customer gets crap, and now hires the developer (s)he should have hired in the first place to "fix" the horribly broken code they got by skimping in step 3
Customer spends twice (or more) the money they would have spent by doing it right the first time
<shrug> It's sad because at each step of the process, some PHB was absolutely certain they were doing The Right Thing (tm). Hopefully, they will figure it out eventually...
They often don't fly at night, but since a record was set in 1952 for a 56h 15m flight, I don't quite think you can say they can't stay aloft after dark (although I suspect Messr. Atger was probably using ridge lift rather than convection to keep airborne during the night).
Again it comes down to the old chestnut, "if you don't want it public, don't publicise it". Everyone on the net knows about Facebook and their (dis)regard for privacy, likewise everyone knows that Google will have cached the majority of it within 15 minutes for posterity. I don't understand why people will STILL put data online they don't want people to see.
Offtopic? Seriously? Whether or not data that is published on the web is legally allowed to be freely redistributed, regardless of what the publisher of said data wishes, is the crux of the matter in this case. FB says this guy access their data in violation of their ToS. He says it was published on the web (and not covered by a robots.txt file), and therefore he should have had the right to redistribute it as he saw fit. My statement above was an example of a case in which information published on the web is clearly NOT free for redistribution.
Sure, any photos and videos you post CAN be copyrighted, as they are physical artforms. Your personal bio cannot.
[citation needed]. There are many, many authors of biographies who would beg to differ. For that matter, "merely facts" can and have been copyrighted. Otherwise, textbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries could not be copyrighted (but they often are). No, you cannot copyright the definition of a particular word, but by doing the work of aggregating a collection of definitions (for example), you certainly have added value and thus the collection can be copyrighted.
And as TFA was about scraping biodata, i.e. non-copyrightable data, the guy had a perfectly valid case, but was scared off by the big boys brandishing loaded lawyers.
I agree he probably had a valid case, but I don't think it's nearly as cut-and-dried as you seem to think it is. The crux of the issue, however, is whether or not the scraped data is copyrightable. I think it may have been. You, apparently, do not think so. Unfortunately, neither of us are judges, and so our opinions are only worth the paper they are written upon (i.e., nothing). And since this case did not go to court, neither of us will ever know who was right;)
And you still need to get a grip.
Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they "need to get a grip". That phrase is typically used for people who have flown off the handle. I don't think I did that, either in this post or the previous one, so I'm curious what makes you say that?
By that logic, I should be legally allowed to redistribute every MP3 I ever downloaded from Amazon.com. I'd like to see how that argument would fly in front of a judge.
Have a friend on Facebook? Go to Google, type in their name, then clicked the "Cached" link. You can get some (but not nearly all) of their profile this way without ever logging in to Facebook. AFAIK, however, Facebook has not tried to sue Google over this obvious and blatant theft of their data
Yep. That's good because in such a system, you don't launch trivial lawsuits (because risk vs. reward isn't great enough), you don't launch lawsuits simply for the purpose of harassing someone (because then you'll lose), and you don't launch lawsuits if you don't think you have a strong enough case to win.
Our government was founded upon the concept that all laws apply equally to everyone. There is an interesting document expressing the intent of the Founding Fathers. As I recall, it says something like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...", "...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...", etc., etc. Maybe I'm just reading this through my idealist's mental filter, but it seems to me that the intent was not to replace a privileged class based upon lineage with a privileged class based upon wealth, but that's what we've created in the last 200 years. And that means something is definitely broken.
Wrong. Were I the only car on the road, *maybe* you would be correct. However, I typically am not alone on the road. Just because *I* am driving at a reasonable speed and watching for potential problems doesn't mean there aren't other idiots driving much faster than reasonable for the conditions, and it doesn't mean that everyone else is looking for traffic that's hidden behind parked cars alongside the road as they approach intersections. Even when *you* do everything right, there is always the chance that some bozo near you is doing everything wrong. I prefer to have as much warning as possible when that's the case so that I can alter speed and/or course as necessary to stay waaaaaay the heck away from them.
Actually, I am a stickler for the speed limit in residential areas, for the exact reason that prompted you to post the comment above. Having said that, many of the roads in town that are *outside* residential areas are slower than necessary, and the highway system is a joke.
No. The streets themselves are more dangerous (i.e., there are more hazards along the roadway). The driver compensates by reducing speed until the perceived risk factor (the potential risk of a collision along the more dangerous roadway, adjusted for speed) is approximately the same.
In the UK we have lots of 'speed warning' signs. When you approach them, if you are exceeding the speed limit, they light up and tell you (and anyone behind you) how fast you are going. And that's all. No penalties.
They tried that where I live, too. Unfortunately, I guess we Yanks are lot more shameless. Over here, we would only speed up to see how high we could get the numbers on those signs. I had a friend-of-a-friend (no, really!) who tried that, but didn't think it through very well because he did that at the same location at the same time every day. Apparently, those signs have a time stamp and record the speed of cars passing by, because after a couple of days, there was a police car waiting for him as he came blasting past the sign 8*
How about if, rather than trying to design ways to make the roads so completely unsafe that even a monkey can see that he needs to slow down, we find ways of designing roads so that they are safe at a speed people actually want to drive?
Dang...according to wikipedia that means on a straight, clear road, I shouldn't drive any faster than I can stop in slightly under three miles. How fast do people drive where you live?!?!?
While a double blind test of the plaintiff would be ideal it can't be done without the consent of the plaintiff because you can't force someone to testify against themselves.
Are you sure that's correct? For the record, I am not sure you aren't correct, since my legal qualifications are nil. However, from high school and college civics classes, I seem to recall that the burden of proof might not play out the way you seem to think. In a criminal case, the state has to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the defendant is guilty. In a civil case such as this, the plaintiff must prove to the judge's satisfaction that he has a legal claim against the defendant. I would therefore expect that the plaintiff can't just claim that his neighbor's WIFI signal is causing his illness; he must show some proof that his illness is actually caused by his neighbor's WIFI. And as people here on/. are found of saying, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. In my layman's opinion, for however much or however little that is worth, I would think that a double-blind test is not an unreasonable requirement to show that the neighbor's WIFI signal is, in fact, the cause of the plaintiff's illness.
Does anyone with any legal background want to chime in on this?
Meh...hacking into other peoples' systems without prior permission is kind of a big deal, in my opinion. However, I have always thought it would be fun to have some kind of cracking LAN party. Bring your laptop (or whatever), with the understanding that others at the party *will* be trying to break into it. Last one owned wins. Then when it's all over, everyone tells everyone else what they did to break into the box and what the owner of the box could have done to make it more secure. When you're done, you burn the box to the ground and rebuild it from scratch, just to be sure.
You gain valuable knowledge about securing your own systems and about exploiting other systems. You get the fun of cracking and the benefits of "lessons learned" without the legal risk of unauthorized cracking or the expense of recovering from a security breach on a production system.
They actually offered a "computer security" course at the University from which I earned my Bachelor's Degree. Unfortunately, the "computer security" course they offered was a monumental waste of time. We spent almost the entire semester learning about encryption algorithms (RSA, DSA, etc.) and coding these algorithms. While it certainly is important to understand encryption, there is a *lot* more to computer security than being able to implement an RSA encryption algorithm.
Let me see if I understand what you are saying. Because you achieved a measure of success (and to be honest, $50K per year doesn't sound overly generous to me, but maybe some of this is location -- the cost of living in Alaska is rather high) due to some combination of hard work, natural talent and good timing, you felt guilty because you were making more money than people twice your age who were doing more *physical* work than you were. With all due respect, I think you were missing a couple of very important factors.
You may not have paid your dues in school, since you were expelled in 8th grade, but somehow I doubt you immediately jumped from 8th grade to IT manager. To get that position without the benefit of a GED, you obviously spent some time working hard to learn enough about IT to convince your employer that you were qualified to do the job. I *did* graduate from high school, I busted my butt to get my four year degree (in considerably more time than four years, but I digress) and I still poured a lot of time effort and money into studying system administration before I got my break in IT. If you landed a cush position without the educational credentials I earned, then (barring nepotism), you either were naturally gifted or were a very hard worker and most likely, you were some combination of the two. That means you possessed at least two qualities that are in short supply: talent and determination. If those qualities are in short supply, employers will pay well for people who possess them -- that's just econ 101.
Second, I think you are devaluing the work you did. It may not have taken a lot of physical effort, but mental effort is every bit as taxing. Leadership, vision, responsibility, and the ability to set a goal and take steps to achieve it are most certainly "work." To say that the other people working at the resort with you who were providing physical labor were more "worthy" than you, is almost certainly false (unless you spent 40 hours a week posting on/. and playing spider solitaire <grin>). As an IT manager, your decisions directly affected the business's bottom line, and therefore, if you screwed up, there was a really good chance that you would have lost your job. For example, a gardener probably won't get fired for planting a gardenia in the wrong location, but if you type "rm -Rf./" on the wrong console window...well, you get the idea. Risk and pay are often directly proportional.
I disagree that IT work is not "hard, honest labor." Again, not all work is physical. You said it yourself: "What I am trying to say is that people making millions of dollars for contributing so little to society are doing a massive disservice to themselves in the long run." I agree. I don't think, however, that you contributed little to society (or to your employer). There is a great deal of responsibility in IT, and a lot of mental effort required to create innovative solutions to real-world business problems. Where I work, we created a revolutionary network in one of the most remote parts of the U.S. Our work brings telemedicine, distance education and a boat-load of other real-world benefits to people who have traditionally been very, very isolated. I see that as a huge contribution to at least a portion of society. I may have a lot of free time at work some days, but I have also put in extremely long hours or canceled weekend plans with my family on other days when something was broken. It all evens out in the wash.
Finally, if other people -- be they other managers, or the people they manage -- are sniping at you for the job you do, then either 1) they are insecure that a young guy like yourself is doing such a good job (BTDT), or 2) they are jealous of the success that your hard work and natural talent have brought you. In either case, it's not your problem. It's theirs and there is no reason for you to take on the burden of their issues.
As someone who has enjoyed Earl Grey tea since the 70's and I like Star Trek all of a sudden I was 'copying' Capt. Picard. That not just insulting that I would choose a beverage based on what a fictional character enjoys...
Meh, why worry over it? I also like Star Trek (even TNG) and enjoy Earl Grey tea as well, but I've never caught any flack over the coincidence (and like you, that's exactly what it is). My response to any one who would make comments that I was copying Capt. Picard would be, "Don't you have anything relevant or at the very least, interesting to worry about?"
Maybe I'm just being dense, but how, exactly, would this be different than the web server I already have in my garage?
run your own server in your home;
Check.
keep your data on it (on encrypted storage) instead of keeping it in some remote datacenter;
Well, I haven't bothered to encrypt it, but I could if I wanted to.
use a policy to carefully select who can access to it (i.e. your friends);
Check. Private information is password protected; public information is open to the world.
in case of emergency, unplug it from the wall;
Check. In fact, it's unplugged right now, but due to household maintenance rather than an emergency.
encrypted backups go onto your friend's servers.
Check, although the data isn't encrypted at the remote sites. It was copied via SSH so the transport was encrypted, but since it is stored on PCs that I maintain in other locations, I view this risk as minimal. And the data isn't really that interesting, anyway (i.e., nothing life altering will happen if it falls into "the wrong hands").
FWIW, I gave in and joined the Dark Side (Facebook) last week basically because the people who talked me in to signing up for an account were non-technical enough that 1) it probably never occurred to them to use Google to search for me and 2) they *expect* to find people on FB and therefore couldn't understand why I hadn't already signed up for an account. Since they were professional contacts I decided it wasn't worth fighting any longer. In other words, I don't see that this appliance will actually provide any real benefit, whereas the already-known, already-established social networking sites do (albeit, just barely).
Has it? How would you know? That is why the ACLU is filing suit -- to determine whether or not such an abuse has occurred.
I tend *not* to let emotional rhetoric affect my ability to utilize logic and common sense.:)
jagapen wasn't using emotional rhetoric. jagapen was personalizing what the powers the ACLU is suing over ultimately means. If you -- either you personally or "you" in the generic way it is often used meaning "some undetermined person" -- are added to a Predator drone hit list, there is no chance to appeal the decision that you should be assassinated because you won't even know you have been targeted until you are in the drone's sights. Honestly, I think the problem is broader than drones. If you are marked for assassination by *any* TLA or the military, then it is a violation of due process (which historically, the court has held is not limited to U.S. citizens). And I question your claim of "common sense", since as I see it, common sense is the reasoning ability that says, "Hey, historically governments that have had the ability and the latitude to off someone whenever they felt like it, with no oversight at all, have not been particularly pleasant for the general population. Maybe we should put measures in place to keep that from happening again." If you don't see the problem with the government being allowed to target and assassinate anyone at any time, anywhere, with no oversight then I question either your education (specifically your knowledge of human history) or your logic and common sense.
I have no fear of...Black SUVs.
I do, albeit for reasons entirely unrelated to this article. I ride a motorcycle, and I've noticed that the amount of attention paid by the average driver is inversely proportional to the mass of his or her vehicle. Therefore, I greatly fear SUV's, whether black, or any other color:) They have a great deal of momentum and the driver frequently is engaged in tasks other than driving.
Yale Law Student Wants Government To Have Everybody's DNA
Alaska Network Admin doesn't.
Regarding the obvious issue of genetic privacy, Seringhaus makes this argument: "Your sensitive genetic information would be safe...these records include none of the health and biological data present in one’s genome as a whole."
The only information that is "safe" is information that isn't known and isn't recorded anywhere. Isn't/. the site where people keep repeating "information wants to be free!"? Ben Franklin had it right: "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead."
Slashdot Mirror
I take offense to programmers thinking they are "software engineers" when in fact many do not hold engineering degrees.
I worked at a job where they changed my title from "sys admin" to "IP Engineer". I avoided that term like the plague, for the very reason you mention.
<shrug> It's sad because at each step of the process, some PHB was absolutely certain they were doing The Right Thing (tm). Hopefully, they will figure it out eventually...
So they don't really fly at night.
They often don't fly at night, but since a record was set in 1952 for a 56h 15m flight, I don't quite think you can say they can't stay aloft after dark (although I suspect Messr. Atger was probably using ridge lift rather than convection to keep airborne during the night).
Again it comes down to the old chestnut, "if you don't want it public, don't publicise it". Everyone on the net knows about Facebook and their (dis)regard for privacy, likewise everyone knows that Google will have cached the majority of it within 15 minutes for posterity. I don't understand why people will STILL put data online they don't want people to see.
THAT I can certainly agree with :)
Offtopic? Seriously? Whether or not data that is published on the web is legally allowed to be freely redistributed, regardless of what the publisher of said data wishes, is the crux of the matter in this case. FB says this guy access their data in violation of their ToS. He says it was published on the web (and not covered by a robots.txt file), and therefore he should have had the right to redistribute it as he saw fit. My statement above was an example of a case in which information published on the web is clearly NOT free for redistribution.
Sure, any photos and videos you post CAN be copyrighted, as they are physical artforms. Your personal bio cannot.
[citation needed]. There are many, many authors of biographies who would beg to differ. For that matter, "merely facts" can and have been copyrighted. Otherwise, textbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries could not be copyrighted (but they often are). No, you cannot copyright the definition of a particular word, but by doing the work of aggregating a collection of definitions (for example), you certainly have added value and thus the collection can be copyrighted.
And as TFA was about scraping biodata, i.e. non-copyrightable data, the guy had a perfectly valid case, but was scared off by the big boys brandishing loaded lawyers.
I agree he probably had a valid case, but I don't think it's nearly as cut-and-dried as you seem to think it is. The crux of the issue, however, is whether or not the scraped data is copyrightable. I think it may have been. You, apparently, do not think so. Unfortunately, neither of us are judges, and so our opinions are only worth the paper they are written upon (i.e., nothing). And since this case did not go to court, neither of us will ever know who was right ;)
And you still need to get a grip.
Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they "need to get a grip". That phrase is typically used for people who have flown off the handle. I don't think I did that, either in this post or the previous one, so I'm curious what makes you say that?
By that logic, I should be legally allowed to redistribute every MP3 I ever downloaded from Amazon.com. I'd like to see how that argument would fly in front of a judge.
Have a friend on Facebook? Go to Google, type in their name, then clicked the "Cached" link. You can get some (but not nearly all) of their profile this way without ever logging in to Facebook. AFAIK, however, Facebook has not tried to sue Google over this obvious and blatant theft of their data
Yep. That's good because in such a system, you don't launch trivial lawsuits (because risk vs. reward isn't great enough), you don't launch lawsuits simply for the purpose of harassing someone (because then you'll lose), and you don't launch lawsuits if you don't think you have a strong enough case to win.
Yeah, no.
Our government was founded upon the concept that all laws apply equally to everyone. There is an interesting document expressing the intent of the Founding Fathers. As I recall, it says something like, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...", "...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...", etc., etc. Maybe I'm just reading this through my idealist's mental filter, but it seems to me that the intent was not to replace a privileged class based upon lineage with a privileged class based upon wealth, but that's what we've created in the last 200 years. And that means something is definitely broken.
Wrong. Were I the only car on the road, *maybe* you would be correct. However, I typically am not alone on the road. Just because *I* am driving at a reasonable speed and watching for potential problems doesn't mean there aren't other idiots driving much faster than reasonable for the conditions, and it doesn't mean that everyone else is looking for traffic that's hidden behind parked cars alongside the road as they approach intersections. Even when *you* do everything right, there is always the chance that some bozo near you is doing everything wrong. I prefer to have as much warning as possible when that's the case so that I can alter speed and/or course as necessary to stay waaaaaay the heck away from them.
Actually, I am a stickler for the speed limit in residential areas, for the exact reason that prompted you to post the comment above. Having said that, many of the roads in town that are *outside* residential areas are slower than necessary, and the highway system is a joke.
No. The streets themselves are more dangerous (i.e., there are more hazards along the roadway). The driver compensates by reducing speed until the perceived risk factor (the potential risk of a collision along the more dangerous roadway, adjusted for speed) is approximately the same.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
In the UK we have lots of 'speed warning' signs. When you approach them, if you are exceeding the speed limit, they light up and tell you (and anyone behind you) how fast you are going. And that's all. No penalties.
They tried that where I live, too. Unfortunately, I guess we Yanks are lot more shameless. Over here, we would only speed up to see how high we could get the numbers on those signs. I had a friend-of-a-friend (no, really!) who tried that, but didn't think it through very well because he did that at the same location at the same time every day. Apparently, those signs have a time stamp and record the speed of cars passing by, because after a couple of days, there was a police car waiting for him as he came blasting past the sign 8*
How about if, rather than trying to design ways to make the roads so completely unsafe that even a monkey can see that he needs to slow down, we find ways of designing roads so that they are safe at a speed people actually want to drive?
Dang...according to wikipedia that means on a straight, clear road, I shouldn't drive any faster than I can stop in slightly under three miles. How fast do people drive where you live?!?!?
While a double blind test of the plaintiff would be ideal it can't be done without the consent of the plaintiff because you can't force someone to testify against themselves.
Are you sure that's correct? For the record, I am not sure you aren't correct, since my legal qualifications are nil. However, from high school and college civics classes, I seem to recall that the burden of proof might not play out the way you seem to think. In a criminal case, the state has to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the defendant is guilty. In a civil case such as this, the plaintiff must prove to the judge's satisfaction that he has a legal claim against the defendant. I would therefore expect that the plaintiff can't just claim that his neighbor's WIFI signal is causing his illness; he must show some proof that his illness is actually caused by his neighbor's WIFI. And as people here on /. are found of saying, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. In my layman's opinion, for however much or however little that is worth, I would think that a double-blind test is not an unreasonable requirement to show that the neighbor's WIFI signal is, in fact, the cause of the plaintiff's illness.
Does anyone with any legal background want to chime in on this?
Meh...hacking into other peoples' systems without prior permission is kind of a big deal, in my opinion. However, I have always thought it would be fun to have some kind of cracking LAN party. Bring your laptop (or whatever), with the understanding that others at the party *will* be trying to break into it. Last one owned wins. Then when it's all over, everyone tells everyone else what they did to break into the box and what the owner of the box could have done to make it more secure. When you're done, you burn the box to the ground and rebuild it from scratch, just to be sure.
You gain valuable knowledge about securing your own systems and about exploiting other systems. You get the fun of cracking and the benefits of "lessons learned" without the legal risk of unauthorized cracking or the expense of recovering from a security breach on a production system.
They actually offered a "computer security" course at the University from which I earned my Bachelor's Degree. Unfortunately, the "computer security" course they offered was a monumental waste of time. We spent almost the entire semester learning about encryption algorithms (RSA, DSA, etc.) and coding these algorithms. While it certainly is important to understand encryption, there is a *lot* more to computer security than being able to implement an RSA encryption algorithm.
Let me see if I understand what you are saying. Because you achieved a measure of success (and to be honest, $50K per year doesn't sound overly generous to me, but maybe some of this is location -- the cost of living in Alaska is rather high) due to some combination of hard work, natural talent and good timing, you felt guilty because you were making more money than people twice your age who were doing more *physical* work than you were. With all due respect, I think you were missing a couple of very important factors.
/. and playing spider solitaire <grin>). As an IT manager, your decisions directly affected the business's bottom line, and therefore, if you screwed up, there was a really good chance that you would have lost your job. For example, a gardener probably won't get fired for planting a gardenia in the wrong location, but if you type "rm -Rf ./" on the wrong console window...well, you get the idea. Risk and pay are often directly proportional.
You may not have paid your dues in school, since you were expelled in 8th grade, but somehow I doubt you immediately jumped from 8th grade to IT manager. To get that position without the benefit of a GED, you obviously spent some time working hard to learn enough about IT to convince your employer that you were qualified to do the job. I *did* graduate from high school, I busted my butt to get my four year degree (in considerably more time than four years, but I digress) and I still poured a lot of time effort and money into studying system administration before I got my break in IT. If you landed a cush position without the educational credentials I earned, then (barring nepotism), you either were naturally gifted or were a very hard worker and most likely, you were some combination of the two. That means you possessed at least two qualities that are in short supply: talent and determination. If those qualities are in short supply, employers will pay well for people who possess them -- that's just econ 101.
Second, I think you are devaluing the work you did. It may not have taken a lot of physical effort, but mental effort is every bit as taxing. Leadership, vision, responsibility, and the ability to set a goal and take steps to achieve it are most certainly "work." To say that the other people working at the resort with you who were providing physical labor were more "worthy" than you, is almost certainly false (unless you spent 40 hours a week posting on
I disagree that IT work is not "hard, honest labor." Again, not all work is physical. You said it yourself: "What I am trying to say is that people making millions of dollars for contributing so little to society are doing a massive disservice to themselves in the long run." I agree. I don't think, however, that you contributed little to society (or to your employer). There is a great deal of responsibility in IT, and a lot of mental effort required to create innovative solutions to real-world business problems. Where I work, we created a revolutionary network in one of the most remote parts of the U.S. Our work brings telemedicine, distance education and a boat-load of other real-world benefits to people who have traditionally been very, very isolated. I see that as a huge contribution to at least a portion of society. I may have a lot of free time at work some days, but I have also put in extremely long hours or canceled weekend plans with my family on other days when something was broken. It all evens out in the wash.
Finally, if other people -- be they other managers, or the people they manage -- are sniping at you for the job you do, then either 1) they are insecure that a young guy like yourself is doing such a good job (BTDT), or 2) they are jealous of the success that your hard work and natural talent have brought you. In either case, it's not your problem. It's theirs and there is no reason for you to take on the burden of their issues.
You're a bad boy, all right. Next thing you know, you will be adding cream and sugar to it, too :)
As someone who has enjoyed Earl Grey tea since the 70's and I like Star Trek all of a sudden I was 'copying' Capt. Picard. That not just insulting that I would choose a beverage based on what a fictional character enjoys...
Meh, why worry over it? I also like Star Trek (even TNG) and enjoy Earl Grey tea as well, but I've never caught any flack over the coincidence (and like you, that's exactly what it is). My response to any one who would make comments that I was copying Capt. Picard would be, "Don't you have anything relevant or at the very least, interesting to worry about?"
run your own server in your home;
Check.
keep your data on it (on encrypted storage) instead of keeping it in some remote datacenter;
Well, I haven't bothered to encrypt it, but I could if I wanted to.
use a policy to carefully select who can access to it (i.e. your friends);
Check. Private information is password protected; public information is open to the world.
in case of emergency, unplug it from the wall;
Check. In fact, it's unplugged right now, but due to household maintenance rather than an emergency.
encrypted backups go onto your friend's servers.
Check, although the data isn't encrypted at the remote sites. It was copied via SSH so the transport was encrypted, but since it is stored on PCs that I maintain in other locations, I view this risk as minimal. And the data isn't really that interesting, anyway (i.e., nothing life altering will happen if it falls into "the wrong hands").
FWIW, I gave in and joined the Dark Side (Facebook) last week basically because the people who talked me in to signing up for an account were non-technical enough that 1) it probably never occurred to them to use Google to search for me and 2) they *expect* to find people on FB and therefore couldn't understand why I hadn't already signed up for an account. Since they were professional contacts I decided it wasn't worth fighting any longer. In other words, I don't see that this appliance will actually provide any real benefit, whereas the already-known, already-established social networking sites do (albeit, just barely).
Oh, wait...no such abuse has yet presented.
Has it? How would you know? That is why the ACLU is filing suit -- to determine whether or not such an abuse has occurred.
I tend *not* to let emotional rhetoric affect my ability to utilize logic and common sense. :)
jagapen wasn't using emotional rhetoric. jagapen was personalizing what the powers the ACLU is suing over ultimately means. If you -- either you personally or "you" in the generic way it is often used meaning "some undetermined person" -- are added to a Predator drone hit list, there is no chance to appeal the decision that you should be assassinated because you won't even know you have been targeted until you are in the drone's sights. Honestly, I think the problem is broader than drones. If you are marked for assassination by *any* TLA or the military, then it is a violation of due process (which historically, the court has held is not limited to U.S. citizens). And I question your claim of "common sense", since as I see it, common sense is the reasoning ability that says, "Hey, historically governments that have had the ability and the latitude to off someone whenever they felt like it, with no oversight at all, have not been particularly pleasant for the general population. Maybe we should put measures in place to keep that from happening again." If you don't see the problem with the government being allowed to target and assassinate anyone at any time, anywhere, with no oversight then I question either your education (specifically your knowledge of human history) or your logic and common sense.
I have no fear of...Black SUVs.
I do, albeit for reasons entirely unrelated to this article. I ride a motorcycle, and I've noticed that the amount of attention paid by the average driver is inversely proportional to the mass of his or her vehicle. Therefore, I greatly fear SUV's, whether black, or any other color :) They have a great deal of momentum and the driver frequently is engaged in tasks other than driving.
Yale Law Student Wants Government To Have Everybody's DNA
Alaska Network Admin doesn't.
Regarding the obvious issue of genetic privacy, Seringhaus makes this argument: "Your sensitive genetic information would be safe...these records include none of the health and biological data present in one’s genome as a whole."
The only information that is "safe" is information that isn't known and isn't recorded anywhere. Isn't /. the site where people keep repeating "information wants to be free!"? Ben Franklin had it right: "Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead."