to actually delete all the users files and never give them back.
If you are actually in charge of IT at the place, you might look into a hardware solution. A mechanism involving a boxing glove installed on each computer, perhaps.:)
Well, if you are the only one the screen detects as actively watching, it may target an ad customized for you - of course, once the ad starts, it may still catch the attention of others.
It would be hilarious to see the group averages, though - a group of men go past, and the screen starts advertising beer or erotic magazines; the men leave and the screen switches over to women's fashion.
Google has "leaked" info about GDrive so often that very soon they'll need to find a way to get their "leaks" aired on national TV to get more coverage than they already have.
Nice marketing strategy, though.
(Also, note that out of "Email", "Calendar", "Browser" and "World Domination", Google has proved rumors correct at least three for four now.)
And this is why my XP system has not been updated in two years now. The PC's working, Microsoft won't support the OS much longer, and Microsoft is known for messy and intrusive changes. Ain't no way I'm letting them near my computer now.
Yes, that means I have dozens of unplugged security holes, but then there are dozens of unplugged holes even after updating - plus the messy changes into the bargain. Ultimately I'm probably safer relying on a NAT router and a virus scanner than on system fixes.
reach 12% of the speed of light on its way to Barnard's Star.
That is fast, but since Barnard's Star is 6 light years away, assuming a constant acceleration and deceleration it would still take 100 years to arrive.
So in the future we will all wear special glasses or brain implants? Or will the screens be able to show different images in different tightly focused directions?
We fail to realize that at times, the majority is wrong.
Perfectly correct. This is why we live in a representative democracy, not a mob rule. If laws were decided by popular, then here in civilized Europe we would soon see the death penalty again - and in California, we saw anti-gay legislation pass by referendum.
Giving the vengeful mob tools to undermine that is not a good thing.
Here's where you're wrong. Witness that we have free speech and social networks, and yet we haven't overthrown the government and started a civil war yet.
The fallacy is the same that the local leaders fell for while enacting these restrictions. You consider free speech and rights of assembly a weapon in the hands of the people, against the established order. They're not. Like all information and education, they are a weapon of civilization against violence.
It's a mistake to think the terrorists down there are violent by nature, and need to be kept stupid to remain docile. They're violent because they're kept stupid. Once they have a voice, they won't need bombs - and the few hard-liners who can't be convinced will die out once the youth has a future.
I love Gmail, but this is ridiculous. Google has no contract with the government, its terms of service void most liability (that's what "free" means).
It also uses a non-reserved namespace. Right now, within a few minutes, I could sign up for wh.obamma, wh.barrak-obama, wh1te.house and any number of other unclaimed addresses and possibly pick up sensitive email sent to misspelled addresses.
Regardless of whether all email is encrypted or signed (and remember, this is the government, half of which is probably using Outlook), this is a bad idea. Kudos for using Gmail, which is the best webmail service in existence, but this shouldn't have been necessary.
Who the hell is running IT at the White House? Shouldn't they have set up.gov accounts for the entire administrative staff some time back in November? What was the hold-up?
It is unnerving that your privacy comes with a price tag, but at least if it were more expensive, you could hope that law enforcement agencies will only request it if they're really, really sure they need it.
What really happens, judging from the news, is that ISP data gets requested at the drop of a hat, houses get searched, computers confiscated and reputations ruined - only to follow up with a lame apology if the whole thing turns out to be baseless again.
Fraudulent contracts made under false pretenses are not legal or binding, neither in the US nor here in Germany.
There are several similar fraud schemes that advertise "free" services such as horoscopes, ringtones, internet-to-SMS sending, personality or IQ* tests, and later invoice you for the subscription fee hidden in the Terms of Service.
(*The only way to win is not to play.)
You don't need to take these scammers to court. It's usually enough to firmly tell them to shut the fuck up, because hardly any of them will continue to bother you. They're malicious, but they're not stupid - they're not going to spend money on pursuing a shaky claim when they can scare so many others into sending them money.
They're a bit like the RIAA in that respect, but somewhat less self-righteous/confident about it (and therefore easier to fend off).
Depends on the terms of the settlement. "Bankrupt the fuckers" is a nice concept, but in practice a good lawyer (and it seems he's got the best) will probably advise him to accept a sufficiently good settlement offer.
And depending on how much the RIAA stands to lose from a verdict, their eventual settlement offer may become quite sweet.
The solution to this dilemma is quite simple: Democracy stops where human rights begin. Do what you want as long as you do no harm. That's why I don't think the voters have any rights in this matter.
If democracy becomes two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner (or, just hypothetically, two Europeans and an African deciding who sits in the back of the bus, or, even more hypothetically, three heterosexuals and two homosexuals deciding who gets to marry whom), then this democracy is broken.
It is true that the government should represent the will of the people. But giving this will ultimate authority is to take the average of all humans and ascribe mythical powers of omniscience and wisdom to it. The average human is neither. He is in fact a small-minded anti-intellectual who is easily influenced by the television. This is why there are Constitutions, bicameral governments and written laws: Because deciding all this by general referenda, especially among an uneducated populace, leads to the majority (or the ones with the biggest ad budget) using its influence to boss everyone else around.
(In conclusion, because no argument is complete without Godwin's Law: People voted for Hitler and Mussolini. Enthusiastically.)
I've seen several suggestions for avoiding the "no attachments" rule by sending base64-encoded data in plain text. This is essentially the same thing as a normal email attachment apart from some content-type headers.
Note that if your network admin really means "no email attachments" to indirectly limit your size, then saying "oh I know, I'll just send the whole thing as text/plain instead of multipart/related" is a technicality, and you should not be surprised if someone gets annoyed once they catch on. If they actively monitor your quota instead of blindly filtering out by header and size, they well might.
---
Over all, I'd suggest you get used to not being able to surf, and instead sign up for a news aggregator that sends you digest emails. Google Reader unfortunately doesn't support this, but there is surely some service that does.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are actually in charge of IT at the place, you might look into a hardware solution. A mechanism involving a boxing glove installed on each computer, perhaps. :)
Well, if you are the only one the screen detects as actively watching, it may target an ad customized for you - of course, once the ad starts, it may still catch the attention of others.
It would be hilarious to see the group averages, though - a group of men go past, and the screen starts advertising beer or erotic magazines; the men leave and the screen switches over to women's fashion.
Meh, there's nothing wrong with encrypting the important stuff before uploading.
Sure, you won't be able to full-text search in encrypted files, but he who exchanges essential security for temporary convenience deserves neither. :P
Google has "leaked" info about GDrive so often that very soon they'll need to find a way to get their "leaks" aired on national TV to get more coverage than they already have.
Nice marketing strategy, though.
(Also, note that out of "Email", "Calendar", "Browser" and "World Domination", Google has proved rumors correct at least three for four now.)
And this is why my XP system has not been updated in two years now. The PC's working, Microsoft won't support the OS much longer, and Microsoft is known for messy and intrusive changes. Ain't no way I'm letting them near my computer now.
Yes, that means I have dozens of unplugged security holes, but then there are dozens of unplugged holes even after updating - plus the messy changes into the bargain. Ultimately I'm probably safer relying on a NAT router and a virus scanner than on system fixes.
> there is still a country on earth that has SOME kind of privacy
As TFS says, not much longer. :P
That is fast, but since Barnard's Star is 6 light years away, assuming a constant acceleration and deceleration it would still take 100 years to arrive.
So in the future we will all wear special glasses or brain implants? Or will the screens be able to show different images in different tightly focused directions?
In the future, these things will be able to identify you, look you up in various spam profile registries or even read your thoughts.
Then imagine that you're in the underground station, you turn to face an ad screen and it suddenly starts advertising fetish wear.
While everyone looked on. :P
So does that mean we can expect to travel around by mag tube any time soon? :D
Where's the Whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag? :P
Perfectly correct. This is why we live in a representative democracy, not a mob rule. If laws were decided by popular, then here in civilized Europe we would soon see the death penalty again - and in California, we saw anti-gay legislation pass by referendum.
Here's where you're wrong. Witness that we have free speech and social networks, and yet we haven't overthrown the government and started a civil war yet.
The fallacy is the same that the local leaders fell for while enacting these restrictions. You consider free speech and rights of assembly a weapon in the hands of the people, against the established order. They're not. Like all information and education, they are a weapon of civilization against violence.
It's a mistake to think the terrorists down there are violent by nature, and need to be kept stupid to remain docile. They're violent because they're kept stupid. Once they have a voice, they won't need bombs - and the few hard-liners who can't be convinced will die out once the youth has a future.
I love Gmail, but this is ridiculous. Google has no contract with the government, its terms of service void most liability (that's what "free" means).
It also uses a non-reserved namespace. Right now, within a few minutes, I could sign up for wh.obamma, wh.barrak-obama, wh1te.house and any number of other unclaimed addresses and possibly pick up sensitive email sent to misspelled addresses.
Regardless of whether all email is encrypted or signed (and remember, this is the government, half of which is probably using Outlook), this is a bad idea. Kudos for using Gmail, which is the best webmail service in existence, but this shouldn't have been necessary.
Who the hell is running IT at the White House? Shouldn't they have set up .gov accounts for the entire administrative staff some time back in November? What was the hold-up?
It is stored on the servers of a private company that has no contractual obligations to the government. This is not a good idea...
On re-reading my post, I notice I should have said "residences rummaged". :P
Charge a fee of $100,000 per customer.
It is unnerving that your privacy comes with a price tag, but at least if it were more expensive, you could hope that law enforcement agencies will only request it if they're really, really sure they need it.
What really happens, judging from the news, is that ISP data gets requested at the drop of a hat, houses get searched, computers confiscated and reputations ruined - only to follow up with a lame apology if the whole thing turns out to be baseless again.
This will finally do away with that stupidity on phpBB fora where people are required to load an extra page just to lie* about being older than 13.
*Or tell the truth, but which nosy 12-year-old does that?
(Addendum: IANAL, but I have dealt with these idiots before as above. Never heard from them again.)
Fraudulent contracts made under false pretenses are not legal or binding, neither in the US nor here in Germany.
There are several similar fraud schemes that advertise "free" services such as horoscopes, ringtones, internet-to-SMS sending, personality or IQ* tests, and later invoice you for the subscription fee hidden in the Terms of Service.
(*The only way to win is not to play.)
You don't need to take these scammers to court. It's usually enough to firmly tell them to shut the fuck up, because hardly any of them will continue to bother you. They're malicious, but they're not stupid - they're not going to spend money on pursuing a shaky claim when they can scare so many others into sending them money.
They're a bit like the RIAA in that respect, but somewhat less self-righteous/confident about it (and therefore easier to fend off).
My name is John Occupant you insensitive clod! :)
Yes, I think they meant the definition of "educate" that rhymes with "indoctrinate".
Depends on the terms of the settlement. "Bankrupt the fuckers" is a nice concept, but in practice a good lawyer (and it seems he's got the best) will probably advise him to accept a sufficiently good settlement offer.
And depending on how much the RIAA stands to lose from a verdict, their eventual settlement offer may become quite sweet.
Looks like a game of chicken.
I thought "television" meant "seeing something from afar"?
The solution to this dilemma is quite simple: Democracy stops where human rights begin. Do what you want as long as you do no harm. That's why I don't think the voters have any rights in this matter.
If democracy becomes two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner (or, just hypothetically, two Europeans and an African deciding who sits in the back of the bus, or, even more hypothetically, three heterosexuals and two homosexuals deciding who gets to marry whom), then this democracy is broken.
It is true that the government should represent the will of the people. But giving this will ultimate authority is to take the average of all humans and ascribe mythical powers of omniscience and wisdom to it. The average human is neither. He is in fact a small-minded anti-intellectual who is easily influenced by the television. This is why there are Constitutions, bicameral governments and written laws: Because deciding all this by general referenda, especially among an uneducated populace, leads to the majority (or the ones with the biggest ad budget) using its influence to boss everyone else around.
(In conclusion, because no argument is complete without Godwin's Law: People voted for Hitler and Mussolini. Enthusiastically.)
I've seen several suggestions for avoiding the "no attachments" rule by sending base64-encoded data in plain text. This is essentially the same thing as a normal email attachment apart from some content-type headers.
Note that if your network admin really means "no email attachments" to indirectly limit your size, then saying "oh I know, I'll just send the whole thing as text/plain instead of multipart/related" is a technicality, and you should not be surprised if someone gets annoyed once they catch on. If they actively monitor your quota instead of blindly filtering out by header and size, they well might.
---
Over all, I'd suggest you get used to not being able to surf, and instead sign up for a news aggregator that sends you digest emails. Google Reader unfortunately doesn't support this, but there is surely some service that does.