In the United States code, 18 USC 2340 defines torture as:
As used in this chapter-
(1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from-
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
Does waterboarding satisfy this definition? I'm not a lawyer but in my opinion and based on what I've heard about its effects, yes it does because it makes the person feel like they're drowning.
Does this mean that our military personnel are being tortured when they volunteer to be waterboarded to try to prepare for its effects? The key, I think, is "within his custody or physical control." If a soldier who volunteered to be waterboarded as part of training makes a distress signal I assume / hope that the procedure will be stopped immediately and they're not forced to continue. In that case, because they volunteered and can stop the process, I'd say that's not torture.
As a side bonus your comment prompted them to give you a free prostate exam as well as a regular TSA screening, right? Who needs to go to the doctor's office to have the procedure done?
To be fair, the new article I hope they write about this scenario will only need to be two sentences long: DO NOT GIVE YOUR PASSWORDS TO ANYONE. DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR MULTIPLE SITES.
But if they wanted to make it more informative / memorable, they could describe how they may be able to impersonate someone if they can associate one of the entered passwords with one of their registered users (via IP address; not perfect but perhaps good enough) and if that the user used that same password on other sites, like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, etc.
So if the guy who Kickstarted a movie about paint drying applied to have it shown at Tribeca and they decline to show it, they're censoring him? I wouldn't call it that -- I would call it choosing to show movies they believe are of greater entertainment, educational, or artistic value.
If this film had been shown, the quack who lost his medical license and directed this "documentary" would have been able to say "See the documentary shown at the Tribeca Film Festival about how vaccines cause autism!" and use that implicit endorsement to gain more attention for his cause.
It's in the spirit of "We are prepared to bring this to court. However, if you're willing to settle for $100 per file we are accusing you of sharing, we are willing to consider this matter resolved."
As an attacker, it makes sense that you would want to ask for a large enough amount of money that you actually make money, but not enough that it's worth it for your target to fight back. In this case, it seems like that "sweet spot" is 4 bitcoin (or about $1600 dollars) probably precisely because it's "petty cash" to the hospital.
Would it cost more than a lawsuit filed against the hospital by the next of kin of a patient that died because the equipment needed to keep them alive was disabled by an attack like this?
My cynical side thought instead that they were volunteering to pay a slightly higher rate than they are now rather than risking the legislature impose an even higher rate. For example if they knew the legislature was considering making them pay 20% but they preempt the legislature by publicly offering to pay 15%, it would appear to some in the court of public opinion that the lawmakers were being jerks if they pushed for an even higher rate later.
So it's not that Hell froze over, it's that they figured out how to stop at the merely hot part of Hell rather than the scorching inferno part.
It seems like the assumption is that all cars are willing to participate in the communication necessary to coordinate the traffic flowing in each direction to avoid collisions. When that happens, I think it would be like Japanese synchronized walking. But if you throw an older, human-driven car into the mix, does the coordinated effort break down? If you threw someone who hadn't practiced with the group into that YouTube demonstration, it would quickly devolve into chaos.
Not everyone is going to want to turn over driving to the machine, and even if they are required by law to do so there will almost certainly have to be some scenarios grandfathered in. How will those situations be handled?
For the good of our children, we must keep the protections on their cell phones strong so pedophiles can't easily access their personal information and photos, which would be useful in influencing, seducing, and locating them?
For the good of our adults, we must keep the protections on our cell phones strong so identity thieves can't easily access the personal financial information on our phones (see Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, PayPal, credit card information potentially stored by the various App stores?)
I can "think of the children!!!" as well as you can. But I suspect you're going to argue that the FBI is not calling for protections on all cell phones to be weakened, just this one. My response is that if the US government demands such access what's to prevent Russia, China, or a corrupt government from calling for the same access and the method of access leaked to the general criminal populace through those governments?
According to the FBI's public statements it's the second... but once that door is opened, the FBI's going to want to walk through it a second time, and a third, and a fourth, etc. [Authorities in New York are already calling for the door to be held open for them.] Having opened the door once, Apple will be in a much weaker position to keep the door closed those subsequent times.
Then Apple will release a press release saying that due to the judge's decision (and they will include the name of the judge in the statement) they cannot, in good conscience, sell their products in the US any longer if they will be forced to compromise the security of those devices. If they really want to twist the knife, they will inform the relevant government agencies in California (including both US senators) that they're moving (or even just considering moving) their headquarters out of California and out of the United States.
The public starts screaming for the judge's head.
The senators and the governor start screaming at the judge about the loss of jobs and revenue if Apple does pull out of the state.
Canada and Mexico start salivating at the thought of Apple moving there (I think Mexico's closer but more dangerous.)
One possibility that requires just a little sloppiness on the part of the FBI and a little sneakiness on the part of the attacker:
The next time the FBI wants to access a phone like this, the owner of the phone implanted a sort of trojan horse that recorded the information about the vulnerability the FBI used to access the phone and either phones home immediately (is the FBI diligent about keeping the phone in a Faraday cage?) or waits until the phone has network access and then phones home.
Half a year? This has already been going on since last summer and won't end until November. In the not too distant future, we're probably going to have people start campaigning for the next election as soon as the President is inaugurated!
Is your kid's use of this app with or without their consent? If you negotiate "I will let you use my car under the condition that you run this app so I can find out where you are in an emergency" and the kid agrees to the condition, that seems fine in my opinion. If you secretly put this app on their phone, I think the kid would be right to feel angry about your lack of trust in them when they find out.
Or Nissan Motor Company Ltd invokes the right for "Nissan" to be forgotten for just long enough to affect Nissan Computer's business to the extent that it goes out of business and/or agrees to sell the domain name to the automotive company.
The type of power Director Comey is asking for sounds like J. Edgar Hoover's wet dream. To keep Comey and future FBI directors from breaking the law like Hoover is suspected of doing, if he succeeds in mandating encryption back doors to allow law enforcement to access suspected criminals' phone I believe Comey's phone should have the same type of encryption back door. Just in case he implements a policy like COINTELPRO, of course.
How about it, Director? Would you use one of these phones for confidential and/or secret communications with other members of the FBI? If not, why not?
I'm sure that when or if we colonize the moon we will have "big arsed" telescopes on the moon. But to develop the lunar infrastructure to the point where constructing a radio telescope there will take decades (at least) and hauling enough material up there to set up a colony is going to be a monumental task, much less hauling enough extra to build a telescope.
So, to tide us over for the (rough guess) 30-40 years until we can build a lunar colony and lunar industry to the point where a lunar telescope is feasible, scientists want to build one on this mountain.
New York City is small enough and close enough to New Jersey that traveling to another state to buy a phone may be reasonable.
New York state is a bit over 300 miles wide (estimated from Albany to Niagara Falls on a more or less straight route) and at its tallest about 330 miles tall (estimated from New York City to Champlain.) If you're in the center of the state (in the vicinity of Syracuse, roughly) I'd estimate you're looking at a two to three hour drive one way to get to Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or the Canadian border.
Since this bill is in the state legislature, I'm not so sure I'd call a four or five hour round trip an easy way to skirt the law for Syracuse residents.
3) This assemblyman buys a phone with a backdoor that gets compromised and his dirty laundry ends up on the Internet. The assemblyman may backpedal faster than Michael Jackson moonwalking.
4) The assemblyman buys a phone without the backdoor. Assemblyman's opponent in the next election finds out and gets a target to use to accuse assemblyman of hypocrisy.
Who would be responsible if someone suffers financial harm due to their phone being compromised by criminals using the government-mandated "backdoor"? Could the French government itself be sued for damages in that case?
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Does waterboarding satisfy this definition? I'm not a lawyer but in my opinion and based on what I've heard about its effects, yes it does because it makes the person feel like they're drowning.
Does this mean that our military personnel are being tortured when they volunteer to be waterboarded to try to prepare for its effects? The key, I think, is "within his custody or physical control." If a soldier who volunteered to be waterboarded as part of training makes a distress signal I assume / hope that the procedure will be stopped immediately and they're not forced to continue. In that case, because they volunteered and can stop the process, I'd say that's not torture.
I'd be more worried about them heeding the call to "Transform and roll out!"
As a side bonus your comment prompted them to give you a free prostate exam as well as a regular TSA screening, right? Who needs to go to the doctor's office to have the procedure done?
To be fair, the new article I hope they write about this scenario will only need to be two sentences long: DO NOT GIVE YOUR PASSWORDS TO ANYONE. DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR MULTIPLE SITES.
But if they wanted to make it more informative / memorable, they could describe how they may be able to impersonate someone if they can associate one of the entered passwords with one of their registered users (via IP address; not perfect but perhaps good enough) and if that the user used that same password on other sites, like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, etc.
So if the guy who Kickstarted a movie about paint drying applied to have it shown at Tribeca and they decline to show it, they're censoring him? I wouldn't call it that -- I would call it choosing to show movies they believe are of greater entertainment, educational, or artistic value.
If this film had been shown, the quack who lost his medical license and directed this "documentary" would have been able to say "See the documentary shown at the Tribeca Film Festival about how vaccines cause autism!" and use that implicit endorsement to gain more attention for his cause.
It's in the spirit of "We are prepared to bring this to court. However, if you're willing to settle for $100 per file we are accusing you of sharing, we are willing to consider this matter resolved."
As an attacker, it makes sense that you would want to ask for a large enough amount of money that you actually make money, but not enough that it's worth it for your target to fight back. In this case, it seems like that "sweet spot" is 4 bitcoin (or about $1600 dollars) probably precisely because it's "petty cash" to the hospital.
Would it cost more than a lawsuit filed against the hospital by the next of kin of a patient that died because the equipment needed to keep them alive was disabled by an attack like this?
My cynical side thought instead that they were volunteering to pay a slightly higher rate than they are now rather than risking the legislature impose an even higher rate. For example if they knew the legislature was considering making them pay 20% but they preempt the legislature by publicly offering to pay 15%, it would appear to some in the court of public opinion that the lawmakers were being jerks if they pushed for an even higher rate later. So it's not that Hell froze over, it's that they figured out how to stop at the merely hot part of Hell rather than the scorching inferno part.
It seems like the assumption is that all cars are willing to participate in the communication necessary to coordinate the traffic flowing in each direction to avoid collisions. When that happens, I think it would be like Japanese synchronized walking. But if you throw an older, human-driven car into the mix, does the coordinated effort break down? If you threw someone who hadn't practiced with the group into that YouTube demonstration, it would quickly devolve into chaos.
Not everyone is going to want to turn over driving to the machine, and even if they are required by law to do so there will almost certainly have to be some scenarios grandfathered in. How will those situations be handled?
For the good of our children, we must keep the protections on their cell phones strong so pedophiles can't easily access their personal information and photos, which would be useful in influencing, seducing, and locating them?
For the good of our adults, we must keep the protections on our cell phones strong so identity thieves can't easily access the personal financial information on our phones (see Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, PayPal, credit card information potentially stored by the various App stores?)
I can "think of the children!!!" as well as you can. But I suspect you're going to argue that the FBI is not calling for protections on all cell phones to be weakened, just this one. My response is that if the US government demands such access what's to prevent Russia, China, or a corrupt government from calling for the same access and the method of access leaked to the general criminal populace through those governments?
According to the FBI's public statements it's the second ... but once that door is opened, the FBI's going to want to walk through it a second time, and a third, and a fourth, etc. [Authorities in New York are already calling for the door to be held open for them.] Having opened the door once, Apple will be in a much weaker position to keep the door closed those subsequent times.
Then Apple will release a press release saying that due to the judge's decision (and they will include the name of the judge in the statement) they cannot, in good conscience, sell their products in the US any longer if they will be forced to compromise the security of those devices. If they really want to twist the knife, they will inform the relevant government agencies in California (including both US senators) that they're moving (or even just considering moving) their headquarters out of California and out of the United States.
The public starts screaming for the judge's head.
The senators and the governor start screaming at the judge about the loss of jobs and revenue if Apple does pull out of the state.
Canada and Mexico start salivating at the thought of Apple moving there (I think Mexico's closer but more dangerous.)
Do you expect the mugger to walk all the way to the bank???
One possibility that requires just a little sloppiness on the part of the FBI and a little sneakiness on the part of the attacker: The next time the FBI wants to access a phone like this, the owner of the phone implanted a sort of trojan horse that recorded the information about the vulnerability the FBI used to access the phone and either phones home immediately (is the FBI diligent about keeping the phone in a Faraday cage?) or waits until the phone has network access and then phones home.
There may be life, Jim, but not as we know it.
Sensor scans are inconclusive. I recommend an away team investigate more closely.
Half a year? This has already been going on since last summer and won't end until November. In the not too distant future, we're probably going to have people start campaigning for the next election as soon as the President is inaugurated!
The 1992 US men's basketball team, aka the "Dream Team", says hi.
Is your kid's use of this app with or without their consent? If you negotiate "I will let you use my car under the condition that you run this app so I can find out where you are in an emergency" and the kid agrees to the condition, that seems fine in my opinion. If you secretly put this app on their phone, I think the kid would be right to feel angry about your lack of trust in them when they find out.
Or Nissan Motor Company Ltd invokes the right for "Nissan" to be forgotten for just long enough to affect Nissan Computer's business to the extent that it goes out of business and/or agrees to sell the domain name to the automotive company.
The type of power Director Comey is asking for sounds like J. Edgar Hoover's wet dream. To keep Comey and future FBI directors from breaking the law like Hoover is suspected of doing, if he succeeds in mandating encryption back doors to allow law enforcement to access suspected criminals' phone I believe Comey's phone should have the same type of encryption back door. Just in case he implements a policy like COINTELPRO, of course.
How about it, Director? Would you use one of these phones for confidential and/or secret communications with other members of the FBI? If not, why not?
I'm sure that when or if we colonize the moon we will have "big arsed" telescopes on the moon. But to develop the lunar infrastructure to the point where constructing a radio telescope there will take decades (at least) and hauling enough material up there to set up a colony is going to be a monumental task, much less hauling enough extra to build a telescope. So, to tide us over for the (rough guess) 30-40 years until we can build a lunar colony and lunar industry to the point where a lunar telescope is feasible, scientists want to build one on this mountain.
New York City is small enough and close enough to New Jersey that traveling to another state to buy a phone may be reasonable.
New York state is a bit over 300 miles wide (estimated from Albany to Niagara Falls on a more or less straight route) and at its tallest about 330 miles tall (estimated from New York City to Champlain.) If you're in the center of the state (in the vicinity of Syracuse, roughly) I'd estimate you're looking at a two to three hour drive one way to get to Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or the Canadian border.
Since this bill is in the state legislature, I'm not so sure I'd call a four or five hour round trip an easy way to skirt the law for Syracuse residents.
3) This assemblyman buys a phone with a backdoor that gets compromised and his dirty laundry ends up on the Internet. The assemblyman may backpedal faster than Michael Jackson moonwalking.
4) The assemblyman buys a phone without the backdoor. Assemblyman's opponent in the next election finds out and gets a target to use to accuse assemblyman of hypocrisy.
Who would be responsible if someone suffers financial harm due to their phone being compromised by criminals using the government-mandated "backdoor"? Could the French government itself be sued for damages in that case?