Posts by WatAWorld

Re: Why?

"There's no lasting damage, it's just disruptive. A common comparison is the sit-in protest in the real world:"

If we accepted that reasoning we'd have to accept that government employees could do it too without needing a court order or warrant.

They would not even need the agreement of senior managers, they could just do it on their own.

I reject that reasoning.

1. DoS attacks do cause lasting damage. They cause great expense in preventing them happening again.

2. Sit-ins done for *some* reasons are not peaceful political protests, but rather are a form of extortion. As with most criminality, it comes down to intent. Is the intent legal.

Is the intent to force someone change how they do business -- illegal?

Is the intent to force someone to spend money -- illegal?

Or is the intent to make someone consider something -- legal, provided it doesn't cause harm. Harm includes paying service providers for protection against future attacks.

Re: DDOS

Not just Ed Milliband but just under half of Cameron's own party.

Politically active people often quarrel within their own party, it is a normal state of affairs.

But LulzSec and Anonymous are neither political parties nor political discussion groups.

They are groups that actively break the law and disrupt the normal functioning of governments and companies.

I see the problem as only that GCHQ or Special Branch should have had a warrant from a judge to do this.

Government workers should be made to work within the laws set by parliament, and they should be fired or sent to prison when they violate those laws. Being a government employee should be considered an aggravating circumstance that makes the punishment worse, rather than a 'get out of jail free card'.

Acts are seldom ever either "legal or illegal"

Acts are seldom ever either "legal or illegal".

Shooting someone. Locking them up. Putting milk in their coffee. Holding a door open.

These are all acts that can be either legal or illegal depending on the circumstances.

Shooting someone? It could be self defense. Locking someone up?

It could be locking the door to your house and keeping you and your infant inside.

If you put milk (instead of non-dairy creamer) in the coffee of someone you know has a serious allergic reaction it would be a criminal act.

Holding a door open to knowingly facilitate a robbery is a crime.

Acts are seldom ever either "legal or illegal". Intent is a major part of the law, and necessity can be a defense.

Re: I thought my marching days were over

And yet you and I both took time to comment on the story, Obama takes time out of his day to comment on it, the CBC, NY Times and NY Post to articles on it.

People care, just not enough. They don't realize how serious this is.

Re: I've given this some thought

I look at it differently. Politicians aren't the only danger.

It is the spies themselves grabbing power that is the biggest danger.

- Look at J. Edgar Hoover in the USA. What he did over decades makes what Nixon did in a few years look trivial.

- Look at Russia today and the old USSR.

- Recall the Warsaw Pact.

- If you know 20th century South American history, look there.

Politicians can be a problem, but they are not the main problem. The main problem is the security and military apparatus taking control and destroying democracy through intimidation, coercion and later, after they have power, more extreme methods.

Re: Caught in the cookie jar denials

As Lars said, if Cameron really did think the public was okay with this he wouldn't have kept it secret from the public.

The succession of lies coming from Cameron and Obama, each lie revealed in the next day's news. Total disgrace to our puppet politicians.

MS took that to heart and people still complain.

I remember on here a few years ago people couldn't stop themselves from complaining about how bad XP was, how lousy its security was.

I remember all those folks saying, "security had to be designed in, not added on in patches."

Well MS took that to heart and people still complain.

There is no winning.

Re: @Sannon

ComputerSecurityLevel = Min(OSSecurityLevel, AppSecurityLevel, AdminSecurityLevel, UserSecurityLevel);

Could you explain how in the world the UAE could benefit from a discrete conversation over this.

Maybe they could get a bribe to be quiet, but that would only benefit the bureaucrat concerned, not the UAE.

Borrowing the good old USA tactic of the little guy going to the press when he's up against a big powerful enemy seems to be the best solution.

Re: No

From the linked article:

"A high-level UAE source said the two high-resolution Pleiades-type Falcon Eye military observation satellites contained two specific US-supplied components that provide a back door to the highly secure data transmitted to the ground station."

...

"France operates the Pleiades spy satellite in what is viewed as a critical piece of the nation’s sovereignty. Given that core competence, it seemed strange that France would use US technology, although there is an agreement between Paris and Washington over transfer of capabilities, analysts said."

...

"The French negotiations with the US on the technology for the UAE would have been sensitive. For example, when the US sold spy satellites to Saudi Arabia, Israel wanted to limit the resolution level in the payload, the second specialist said."

Re: it's like prison. You don't get to say no but if you're lucky, you can pick the least painful

You'd expect it from the Russians.

But the Russians have fewer skills and resources with which to hide their backdoors.

Russia probably buys most of its chips from other nations, for example.

Re: Tabarrok's curve, first mover and the elephant

First to market is at an advantage?

That ignores global markets and the inability of any regular sized company or innovator to release even a modest product world-wide all at once.

For less modest products production is to expensive for many innovators. Consider ARM, the CPU architecture designer, they could not exist without patents.

Eliminating the patent system completely would aid only mega business.

The patent system (especially in the US) needs overhaul, but not elimination.

Re: Can of worms

My dad died after being hit by a car.

You don't see me posting that cars should be banned.

Re: Loser pays

US patent law changed in 2011 and again in 2013.

I don't see any reason to expect it to not change again soon, the only question is what will the changes be?

Will the changes be designed to protect lawyers, big business, small business, academics, trolls, US business, foreign business, or what? I suppose that depends on who lobbies most effectively.

Re: Proof by assertion

Celebrity chefs, fashion designers, are artists sell their names/labels/signatures more than their products, so what they produce is not a 'public good'.

You go to a celebrity chef's restaurant, you think that's him in the kitchen that night? No, but by going there you are showing your friends your affiliation with that chef.

Same with designer labels on stuff (including much Nike and Apple stuff). Knock-offs, even of superior quality to the original, cannot be sold for the same high prices.

And consider what happens to the price of a paint if its attribution changes from a middling artist to a great master -- same painting, same artistic and aesthetic value, but suddenly goes from being worth $20,000 to $20 million.

Re: Posthumous Pardon?

You are not pardoned for things you did not do.

If you did not do it then your conviction is over-turned or set aside.

Re: Another person who thinks they're 'the only gay in the village'

Some links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Burgess

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt

So being gay did not automatically mean the UK would kick you out of top secret positions.

Re: Abandon all hope.... you are entering "couldhavebeen land"

"it's just that successive bullshit governments have failed to have the vision to back the winners"

That thinking is the root cause of the problems.

Communist and socialist environments have never been hotbeds of new technology and have never given rise to real 'winners'.

What the UK (and NYC) should do is abandon making money through investment banking rip-offs of world + dog and make money through investment banking that invests in good promising technology -- that is what successful countries like the USA (apart from NYC) do.

Re: Granular

"Blocked users cannot mention me."

Yes that is a problem since so many people have the same names. Even people with unusual names, if they check google will find someone else with the same name.

Plus how do you block intentional misspellings?

I think these are existing options:

D. Only my followers can send me tweets.

E. Only my followers can read my tweets.

F. I must actively accept new followers.

Your other ideas are good ideas.

But it should that only the sender ever sees them.

I could see letting a blocked person make 'social comments' that disappear into a blackhole for nobody else to ever see.

But it should that only the sender ever sees them. They should be blocked from everyone else ever seeing them, not just the intended recipient.

Was that the problem, that everyone could see the troll's post but the intended recipient? That would be a blunder.

Of course it is necessary to be certain that people know their messages might not get through. For serious messaging people cannot rely on a messaging service that sometimes blocks them without telling them. Imagine blocked apologies and blocked party invitations. But Twitter is not intended for serious messaging.

Re: I know I'm going to get slammed for this, but....

Yes, down votes from people who've never done the experiment you did.

There is too much blind prejudice against MS and in favour of Turtle Neck guy.