Answer #1: What about hard drives that have failed, but you want to be sure that your...ahem...confidential data can't possibly be recovered? You won't be reusing the tech since you don't want to trust your data to hardware that is failing, so why not have some fun with it while making sure that no one else gets access to...well...whatever it is you don't want them getting access to?
Answer #2: If you work for a TLA, or if you have other seriously confidential data (HIPAA, etc.), then you might opt to use non-physically destructive ways of destroying the data, followed by physically destroying the data to *really* make sure the data is unrecoverable.
Answer #3: Face it...when push comes to shove, people trust results that they can see. Smashed with a hammer? Melted with thermite? Ground to a pile of fine dust? Yep, I can see that the data is gone. "Well, sir, I used the ATA Spec Secure Erase to ensure that all the data is gone." But can the boss -- or the regulators, auditors, etc. -- really tell that the data is gone? How do you know the employee didn't miss a drive by accident while erasing that box of 500 drives? Is he really erasing the data, or is he just *saying* he erased it, then sticking the drives in a dumpster, retrieving them at night and selling the data to identity thieves/your business competitor/the IRS/the Russians?
Maybe, but none of my other guns (which include three.22LRs and a.25, so you can see that I enjoy the smaller calibers, too) are nearly as viscerally satisfying as the shotgun.
Done well, the dichotomy caused by an almost silent battle in space combined with visual explosions and radio chatter could make for an intensely surreal and disturbing battle scene, I suspect -- rather like the scene in Patriot Games (I think it was...) where the Special Forces fly into the training camp and kill all the terrorists while the CIA team watches in infra-red halfway around the world.
Having said that, there wouldn't be a soundtrack in a 100% realistic movie either, but I don't see too many people complaining about that particular flaw in movies...
Just to add to your rant, have you ever noticed how just about every science fiction movie shows the engines in the space ships are running all the time? First, it's bad from a stealth perspective. Whatever your engines emit for thrust can be used to detect your presence. Second, it wastes your fuel for no purpose. In a vacuum, you only need thrust to accelerate. Once you are moving at the desired velocity, inertia will keep you moving at the desired velocity until some force acts to accelerate you in another direction.
Also, this could be what you meant by "They didn't look particularly 'floating' to me as they duke it out in space" but the flight maneuvers are copied from airplanes. Why bank to turn when you can simply rotate and thrust? Think hovercraft rather than airplane. The ship you pilot in the game "Descent" was far more realistic than an X-Wing or Tie Fighter.
...adding that to make a jet fuel that is properly 'green', the energy-intensive electrolysis that produces the hydrogen will need to use a carbon-neutral energy source; and the complex multi-step process will always consume significantly more energy than the fuel it produces could yield. 'It's a lot more complicated than it at first looks.'"
Aren't modern aircraft carriers nuclear powered? If so, I would imagine that the process would indeed be carbon-neutral and that the amount of energy consumed would be immaterial. However, never having been on an aircraft carrier, I could be completely mistaken on either or both of those points.
Police: Hello, Mr. Taco? I have a search warrant for all of the posts on your website by a Mr. Anonymous Coward. We believe Mr. Coward may be responsible for the ransom note using a peculiar grammar that is characteristic of the character "Yoda" from the Star Wars movies, and we would like to verify this claim by analyzing all of Mr. Coward's posts on your site.
CmdrTaco: Right......
well, maybe not in English, I don't tend to have the word pool to draw from
I'm impressed. Your spelling, grammar and punctuation are much, much better than a good portion of the native speakers/writers posting here:)
I could see this working if applied to notes and texts written by someone who didn't have any reason to assume it would become the subject of an investigation. I'd deem it utterly worthless, though, when applied to ransom notes and the like.
Exactly. If you have any inkling that your texts will be analyzed to determine who the actual author is, and you don't want them traced back to you, then, as TFA states, it is trivial even for amateurs to mimic other writing styles to hide the actual author's identity. Even if writing is found in your possession that looks like your style, can you prove that someone didn't mimic your style and plant the sample? TFA says, "no".
The main problem with stylometry is not the methods, but the data. As TFA describes, changing writing style throw off the results - at least to some extent...if someone is aware that the text they are producing might be subjected to stylometric analyses, they can employ various mechanisms to avoid identification and will probably have a better chance at succeeding than if writing casually. However, most texts used in court has been produced casually (letters, emails, text messages) and almost always have some unique traits specific to their author.
But therein lies the rub: how can you be certain that the actual author didn't consider that the text might be subject to stylometric analysis? Even as a kid, if I wrote something that I didn't want traced back to me, I made an effort to disguise my handwriting and writing style. If I thought of that back when I was a semi-delinquent teen/pre-teen (okay, not really delinquent, but I did get a little mischievous once or twice), I can just about guarantee that anyone who is doing something that might land them in real legal trouble will do likewise.
In other words, for stylometric analysis to have *any* degree of validity whatsoever, you not only have to prove that the styles of the sample text and suspected author's typical body of writing match, you also have to prove that the original author never considered that the writing style would be analyzed, and therefore that the original author did not take any steps to disguise writing style. You can't make any assumptions about what the real author expected when composing the message.
No. Comparing someone's writing style and their skin conductance are not even remotely similar. You're a fucking idiot.
I am truly stunned by the depth of the logical reasoning and analytical skills you displayed in the way you completely debunked GPP's post. After reading your argument, how could anyone possibly conceive that the usefulness of stylography and polygraphy in legal investigations could be at all comparable? Truly, I'm speechless at your boundless intellect.
</sarcasm>
I do believe GPP said "...more then [sic] likely..." In the absence of proof to the contrary, the reasonable thing to do is assume it's not a top-level conspiracy.
Yes. It means that the government cannot limit your speech (well, at least legally) for simply political reasons. However, it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with rather or not Flickr can.
Don't get me wrong -- I think it's undeniably crappy for Flickr to pull the image. However, since Flickr is not (yet...) owned by Uncle Sam, this is NOT a First Amendment issue...it's a private business' Terms & Conditions of Use issue.
I had my arm set wrong after I broke it when I was four; they had to break it again and reset it. I had another doctor blow me off when I told him I was sick and it wasn't the flu; I now have my brother's kidney because both of mine had quit. I don't know that getting a correct diagnosis earlier would have made any difference, but I can't help but think that putting off treatment for another week didn't help any. Military phlebotomists consistently had trouble getting my veins to bleed when doing lab work; civilian phlebotomists almost always get a vein the first time -- second, tops.
YMMV. I will admit that I did see some really, really good doctors who seemed to believe that the military was a calling for them. Unfortunately, IME, they seemed to be in the minority.
Not always. I work for a regulated Telecom company. We were bought last year by an unregulated Telecom company that is doing everything in its power to absorb all of our unregulated services while keeping the regulated side as distant as a parent company possibly can.
I spent 15 of the first 18 years of my life going to military doctors. Consequently, I'm not terribly optimistic about the service government run health care will provide. However, I agree whole heartedly with your description of our fighting troops.
So why the discrepancy between the fighting military and military doctors? Those who are on the front lines have a real incentive to get very, very good at their jobs. Those who aren't...well, the military doctors get a chance to practice on them.
What we should do, is to focus our efforts on make Linix and OSS technologies relevant to the average human being....Lets work on these so that if one takes the Linux plunge, that person gets pleasantly surprised.
Have you looked at one of the Dell netbooks with Linux on it? We bought two Mini-9's for testing where I work; I got one, and one of the other network admins got the other. The things are awesome, except for a couple of minor gripes:
1) A couple of tools that I expected (sshd, slocate, rsync) aren't available on the install or the on-line package repository, since it's a slightly lobotomized Dell-specific version of Ubuntu that's installed on the Mini-9;
2) The software update site that Synaptic syncs from worked for about a month, then stopped working (I haven't bothered to call Dell to ask what happened, but I probably should so I can keep the OS updated);
3) It occasionally will not resume after suspending.
Item one problem won't matter to most users; just network geeks like myself. Item two is probably the biggest problem, but like I said, I haven't tried to contact Dell to see why synaptic/apt-get update/etc. can no longer connect to the update server. Item three also happens on my wife's Vista laptop, so doesn't seem to be a differentiating characteristic of Linux over Windows.
On the other hand, the wireless (typically a weakness for Linux distros in my experience) is rock solid, quickly and easily connecting to wireless networks with no fuss and no hassle...very much unlike the wireless on my wife's Vista laptop, which frequently can't find wireless networks, won't stay connected in cases where it does, and/or provides mind-numbingly slow transfer rates when it can connect. Setting up network printers is again far easier and more reliable than the printer setup on my wife's Vista laptop, which has to be reconfigured every single time she reboots. As far as multimedia...I can play DVDs on my Mini-9, I can watch YouTube videos. As far as Firefox and Open Office...on Linux "suck[ing] big time", well...FF may be somewhat slower to run JavaScript and OOo may not have *all* the features or be as pretty as MS Office, but I'll take standards-compliant FF over IE and free OOo with all its faults over MS' $500 price tag and freaking annoying "ribbon" interface any day.
In other words, I think the FOSS/Linux community has done a great deal to make Linux and OSS technologies relevant to the average human being. I see FOSS/Linux as pretty good already and getting even better, but YMMV.
I've had similar discussions with customers in the past, but typically over installing software on multiple machines from a single source (pre-XP).
Customer: But I already own (Windows 2K/Office/whatever)
Me: Yes, but it's licensed for, and already installed upon, a single machine.
Customer: So?
Me: So I'm not installing it on any additional machines, nor will I touch any machines that have the software installed in violation of that license. If you don't want to pay the licensing fees, I could install Linux for you...
I wonder what kind of backlash there will be about this and how much more negative impact it will have on the Palm brand.
Why, none of course...None at all, since Palm knows exactly where you were between noon and 1:00pm today, who you called, where she met you and also knows the phone number of your wife.
My understanding is that lib(dvd)css2 is in a legal limbo -- despite a quick search on Google, I can't find a single citation to show that it is expressly forbidden. However, there are warnings aboutusing it andsimilar technologies all over the net.
So what? If "they" (whoever "they" may be) don't know you are using it, who cares? Well, for instance, what happens when you carry your laptop on an international flight, and as you return to the country, Customsasks tosearchyourlaptop?
I might just be paranoid, but it's something to keep in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Answer #1: What about hard drives that have failed, but you want to be sure that your...ahem...confidential data can't possibly be recovered? You won't be reusing the tech since you don't want to trust your data to hardware that is failing, so why not have some fun with it while making sure that no one else gets access to...well...whatever it is you don't want them getting access to?
Answer #2: If you work for a TLA, or if you have other seriously confidential data (HIPAA, etc.), then you might opt to use non-physically destructive ways of destroying the data, followed by physically destroying the data to *really* make sure the data is unrecoverable.
Answer #3: Face it...when push comes to shove, people trust results that they can see. Smashed with a hammer? Melted with thermite? Ground to a pile of fine dust? Yep, I can see that the data is gone. "Well, sir, I used the ATA Spec Secure Erase to ensure that all the data is gone." But can the boss -- or the regulators, auditors, etc. -- really tell that the data is gone? How do you know the employee didn't miss a drive by accident while erasing that box of 500 drives? Is he really erasing the data, or is he just *saying* he erased it, then sticking the drives in a dumpster, retrieving them at night and selling the data to identity thieves/your business competitor/the IRS/the Russians?
You, sir, have no sense of adventure! :)
My .300 WinMag is nearly that fast...I'll have to try it sometime. Preferably near dusk :)
Maybe, but none of my other guns (which include three .22LRs and a .25, so you can see that I enjoy the smaller calibers, too) are nearly as viscerally satisfying as the shotgun.
Your geek card is hereby officially revoked.
I wonder if a Wal-Mart magnesium firestarter would do the trick?
Pinky, I know what we're going to do this weekend...
Done well, the dichotomy caused by an almost silent battle in space combined with visual explosions and radio chatter could make for an intensely surreal and disturbing battle scene, I suspect -- rather like the scene in Patriot Games (I think it was...) where the Special Forces fly into the training camp and kill all the terrorists while the CIA team watches in infra-red halfway around the world.
Having said that, there wouldn't be a soundtrack in a 100% realistic movie either, but I don't see too many people complaining about that particular flaw in movies...
Just to add to your rant, have you ever noticed how just about every science fiction movie shows the engines in the space ships are running all the time? First, it's bad from a stealth perspective. Whatever your engines emit for thrust can be used to detect your presence. Second, it wastes your fuel for no purpose. In a vacuum, you only need thrust to accelerate. Once you are moving at the desired velocity, inertia will keep you moving at the desired velocity until some force acts to accelerate you in another direction.
Also, this could be what you meant by "They didn't look particularly 'floating' to me as they duke it out in space" but the flight maneuvers are copied from airplanes. Why bank to turn when you can simply rotate and thrust? Think hovercraft rather than airplane. The ship you pilot in the game "Descent" was far more realistic than an X-Wing or Tie Fighter.
...adding that to make a jet fuel that is properly 'green', the energy-intensive electrolysis that produces the hydrogen will need to use a carbon-neutral energy source; and the complex multi-step process will always consume significantly more energy than the fuel it produces could yield. 'It's a lot more complicated than it at first looks.'"
Aren't modern aircraft carriers nuclear powered? If so, I would imagine that the process would indeed be carbon-neutral and that the amount of energy consumed would be immaterial. However, never having been on an aircraft carrier, I could be completely mistaken on either or both of those points.
Police: Hello, Mr. Taco? I have a search warrant for all of the posts on your website by a Mr. Anonymous Coward. We believe Mr. Coward may be responsible for the ransom note using a peculiar grammar that is characteristic of the character "Yoda" from the Star Wars movies, and we would like to verify this claim by analyzing all of Mr. Coward's posts on your site. CmdrTaco: Right......
well, maybe not in English, I don't tend to have the word pool to draw from
I'm impressed. Your spelling, grammar and punctuation are much, much better than a good portion of the native speakers/writers posting here :)
I could see this working if applied to notes and texts written by someone who didn't have any reason to assume it would become the subject of an investigation. I'd deem it utterly worthless, though, when applied to ransom notes and the like.
Exactly. If you have any inkling that your texts will be analyzed to determine who the actual author is, and you don't want them traced back to you, then, as TFA states, it is trivial even for amateurs to mimic other writing styles to hide the actual author's identity. Even if writing is found in your possession that looks like your style, can you prove that someone didn't mimic your style and plant the sample? TFA says, "no".
The main problem with stylometry is not the methods, but the data. As TFA describes, changing writing style throw off the results - at least to some extent...if someone is aware that the text they are producing might be subjected to stylometric analyses, they can employ various mechanisms to avoid identification and will probably have a better chance at succeeding than if writing casually. However, most texts used in court has been produced casually (letters, emails, text messages) and almost always have some unique traits specific to their author.
But therein lies the rub: how can you be certain that the actual author didn't consider that the text might be subject to stylometric analysis? Even as a kid, if I wrote something that I didn't want traced back to me, I made an effort to disguise my handwriting and writing style. If I thought of that back when I was a semi-delinquent teen/pre-teen (okay, not really delinquent, but I did get a little mischievous once or twice), I can just about guarantee that anyone who is doing something that might land them in real legal trouble will do likewise.
In other words, for stylometric analysis to have *any* degree of validity whatsoever, you not only have to prove that the styles of the sample text and suspected author's typical body of writing match, you also have to prove that the original author never considered that the writing style would be analyzed, and therefore that the original author did not take any steps to disguise writing style. You can't make any assumptions about what the real author expected when composing the message.
No. Comparing someone's writing style and their skin conductance are not even remotely similar. You're a fucking idiot.
I am truly stunned by the depth of the logical reasoning and analytical skills you displayed in the way you completely debunked GPP's post. After reading your argument, how could anyone possibly conceive that the usefulness of stylography and polygraphy in legal investigations could be at all comparable? Truly, I'm speechless at your boundless intellect.
</sarcasm>
I do believe GPP said "...more then [sic] likely..." In the absence of proof to the contrary, the reasonable thing to do is assume it's not a top-level conspiracy.
/. Nevermind.
Oh, wait...this is
take it to your lawyer, and he'll explain it to you using hand puppets and bright crayon drawings.
Awesome. You just made my day!
Yes. It means that the government cannot limit your speech (well, at least legally) for simply political reasons. However, it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with rather or not Flickr can.
Don't get me wrong -- I think it's undeniably crappy for Flickr to pull the image. However, since Flickr is not (yet...) owned by Uncle Sam, this is NOT a First Amendment issue...it's a private business' Terms & Conditions of Use issue.
I had my arm set wrong after I broke it when I was four; they had to break it again and reset it. I had another doctor blow me off when I told him I was sick and it wasn't the flu; I now have my brother's kidney because both of mine had quit. I don't know that getting a correct diagnosis earlier would have made any difference, but I can't help but think that putting off treatment for another week didn't help any. Military phlebotomists consistently had trouble getting my veins to bleed when doing lab work; civilian phlebotomists almost always get a vein the first time -- second, tops.
YMMV. I will admit that I did see some really, really good doctors who seemed to believe that the military was a calling for them. Unfortunately, IME, they seemed to be in the minority.
Telecom companies are regulated monopolies.
Not always. I work for a regulated Telecom company. We were bought last year by an unregulated Telecom company that is doing everything in its power to absorb all of our unregulated services while keeping the regulated side as distant as a parent company possibly can.
I spent 15 of the first 18 years of my life going to military doctors. Consequently, I'm not terribly optimistic about the service government run health care will provide. However, I agree whole heartedly with your description of our fighting troops.
So why the discrepancy between the fighting military and military doctors? Those who are on the front lines have a real incentive to get very, very good at their jobs. Those who aren't...well, the military doctors get a chance to practice on them.
Give me fiber to my doorstep and network neutrality (and no forwarding my traffic to NSA), and you will find I have very, very little hate for you!
What we should do, is to focus our efforts on make Linix and OSS technologies relevant to the average human being....Lets work on these so that if one takes the Linux plunge, that person gets pleasantly surprised.
Have you looked at one of the Dell netbooks with Linux on it? We bought two Mini-9's for testing where I work; I got one, and one of the other network admins got the other. The things are awesome, except for a couple of minor gripes:
1) A couple of tools that I expected (sshd, slocate, rsync) aren't available on the install or the on-line package repository, since it's a slightly lobotomized Dell-specific version of Ubuntu that's installed on the Mini-9;
2) The software update site that Synaptic syncs from worked for about a month, then stopped working (I haven't bothered to call Dell to ask what happened, but I probably should so I can keep the OS updated);
3) It occasionally will not resume after suspending.
Item one problem won't matter to most users; just network geeks like myself. Item two is probably the biggest problem, but like I said, I haven't tried to contact Dell to see why synaptic/apt-get update/etc. can no longer connect to the update server. Item three also happens on my wife's Vista laptop, so doesn't seem to be a differentiating characteristic of Linux over Windows.
On the other hand, the wireless (typically a weakness for Linux distros in my experience) is rock solid, quickly and easily connecting to wireless networks with no fuss and no hassle...very much unlike the wireless on my wife's Vista laptop, which frequently can't find wireless networks, won't stay connected in cases where it does, and/or provides mind-numbingly slow transfer rates when it can connect. Setting up network printers is again far easier and more reliable than the printer setup on my wife's Vista laptop, which has to be reconfigured every single time she reboots. As far as multimedia...I can play DVDs on my Mini-9, I can watch YouTube videos. As far as Firefox and Open Office...on Linux "suck[ing] big time", well...FF may be somewhat slower to run JavaScript and OOo may not have *all* the features or be as pretty as MS Office, but I'll take standards-compliant FF over IE and free OOo with all its faults over MS' $500 price tag and freaking annoying "ribbon" interface any day.
In other words, I think the FOSS/Linux community has done a great deal to make Linux and OSS technologies relevant to the average human being. I see FOSS/Linux as pretty good already and getting even better, but YMMV.
I've had similar discussions with customers in the past, but typically over installing software on multiple machines from a single source (pre-XP).
Customer: But I already own (Windows 2K/Office/whatever)
Me: Yes, but it's licensed for, and already installed upon, a single machine.
Customer: So?
Me: So I'm not installing it on any additional machines, nor will I touch any machines that have the software installed in violation of that license. If you don't want to pay the licensing fees, I could install Linux for you...
I wonder what kind of backlash there will be about this and how much more negative impact it will have on the Palm brand.
Why, none of course...None at all, since Palm knows exactly where you were between noon and 1:00pm today, who you called, where she met you and also knows the phone number of your wife.
...in which every tag ends with the character combination "ya'll"?
My understanding is that lib(dvd)css2 is in a legal limbo -- despite a quick search on Google, I can't find a single citation to show that it is expressly forbidden. However, there are warnings about using it and similar technologies all over the net.
So what? If "they" (whoever "they" may be) don't know you are using it, who cares? Well, for instance, what happens when you carry your laptop on an international flight, and as you return to the country, Customs asks to search your laptop?
I might just be paranoid, but it's something to keep in mind.