The War On Computing: What Happens When Authorities Don't Understand Technology
from the here-we-go dept
We've obviously been covering a lot about Aaron Swartz lately, but his case is really just one of many similar cases involving people in positions of authority who simply don't understand basic technology, but feel that something must be illegal because they try to overlay an analog view on a digital world. In the Swartz case, Carmen Ortiz famously used the incredibly misguided and misleading "stealing is stealing" concept. However, as Cory Doctorow has been fond of pointing out lately, we're entering a war on general purpose computing, and this is just one battle front.Two other recent skirmishes show the same sorts of things happening in slightly different contexts. A few months ago, we wrote about the case of Andrew Auernheimer, the security researcher who's been convicted and likely to face a long period of time in jail for exposing a blatant security hole from AT&T that allowed him (and anyone else) to gather personal data on the owners of any iOS device. Remember, AT&T set up some stupid security, making all of this data public via its own API. Now about to be sentenced, Auernheimer was asked to write up a "statement of responsibility" for the court, and chose to do a blog post in which he calls out what a farce the whole situation is:
The facts: AT&T admitted, at trial, that they “published” this data. Their words. Public-facing, programmatic accesses of APIs happen upwards of a trillion times per day. Twitter broke 13 billion on their API ages ago. This is something that happens more than the entire population of Earth, daily. The government has no problem with this up until you transform the output into something offensive to important people. People with “disruptive” startups, this is your fair warning: They are coming for you next.Meanwhile, up in Canada, there's been a fair bit of talk about how Dawson College computer science student Ahmed Al-Khabaz was expelled for discovering a security hole in a system used across many Canadian colleges to store personal data of students. In his case, part of the problem was that, after alerting people to the hole, he went back a few days later to run a script to see if they had closed the hole. This caused the company that managed the system to accuse him of criminal activity:
The other one of my prosecutors, Zach Intrater, said that a comment I made about Goatse Security, my information security working group, starting a certification process to declare systems “goatse tight” was evidence of my intent to personally profit. For those not in on the joke: Goatse is an Internet meme referencing a man holding open his anus very widely. The mind reels.
I can’t survive like this. I am happy to be hitting a prison cell soon. They ruined my business. The feds get approval of who I can work for or with: they rejected one company because the CEO had a social network profile with an occupation listed as “hacker.” They prohibit me from touching any computer that isn’t federally monitored. I do my best to slang Perl code on an Android device to comply with my bail conditions. It isn’t pretty.
“It was Edouard Taza, the president of Skytech. He said that this was the second time they had seen me in their logs, and what I was doing was a cyber attack. I apologized, repeatedly, and explained that I was one of the people who discovered the vulnerability earlier that week and was just testing to make sure it was fixed. He told me that I could go to jail for six to twelve months for what I had just done and if I didn’t agree to meet with him and sign a non-disclosure agreement he was going to call the RCMP and have me arrested. So I signed the agreement.”Even with the signed agreement, Dawson expelled him. While Dawson stands by its decision, the company Skytech says that it's now offered to hire him part time.
Yes, in all three of these cases you can make a case that what the individual did went further than others would go. Some might call it discourteous. Swartz downloaded a lot more than the system intended, even though the network was open and the terms allowed for unlimited downloads. Auernheimer didn't just find the hole, but he scraped a bunch of data and sent some of it off to a reporter. Al-Khabaz didn't just find the security hole, but he also went back and probed the system again later. But, in the context of someone who lives in this kind of world and understands technology, all three represent completely natural behavior. If the technology allows it, why not probe the system and see what comes out? It's the natural curiosity of a young and insightful mind, looking to see what information is there. When it's made available, how do you not then seek to access it?
But there is a fundamental disconnect between an older, non-digital generation who doesn't get this. They think in terms of walls and locks, and clear delineations. The younger generation, the digital native, net savvy generation looks at all of this as information that is available and accessible. The limitation is merely what they can reach with their computer. But this isn't a bad thing -- this is how we discover new things and build and learn. Treating that as criminal behavior is insane and backwards. It's trying to apply an analog concept to a digital world, and then criminalizing exactly what the system allows and what we should be encouraging people to do -- to push the network, to explore, to learn and to access information.
This is a culture clash, of sorts, but it represents a real problem, when we're criminalizing the most curious and adept computer savvy folks out there.
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Filed Under: aaron swartz, access, ahmed al-khabaz, andrew auernheimer, apis, data, hacking, information, war on computing
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War of Attrition...
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Re: War of Attrition...
The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it's not you who changes the system; it's the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely, and I have seen this happen long enough in the few years that I've been alive to know that it's a serious problem. - Immortal Technique
All too common in politics. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger as a perfect example.
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how quaint...
i know most kampers realize this by now: but it don't matter what us 99% think/feel/want; the 1% have us by the short and curlies, and ain't no one want to do what it takes to break free...
thus, billions of old farts dying out who condone -or approve of- the authoritarianism we are held in thrall to, will not put a dent in the system...
only when the 1% are dealt with as they deserve, will we be able to reclaim our system of gummint...
based on a true story...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re: War of Attrition...
This is not about people is about culture.
Young people with old culture is not new.
The "generation" is a cultural thing, if you don't change the culture the generations will all be the same.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jan 23rd, 2013 @ 12:31pm
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National Day of Civic Hacking is a national event that will take place June 1-2, 2013, in cities across the nation. The event will bring together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs from all over the nation to collaboratively create, build, and invent new solutions using publicly-released data, code and technology to solve challenges relevant to our neighborhoods, our cities, our states and our country. National Day of Civic Hacking will provide citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved and work together to improve our society.
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The younger generation
"natural curiosity of young and insightful minds" - I would have done the same thing. Dont think it is age at all.
"disconnect between an older, non-digital generation" - My wife is anti-technology. She was just saying how funny it was that some of her elderly patients, one in particular is 80, were happily using their kindles & ipads while she has never been on twitter or even Ebay. She is 37.
Some ppl just draw a line in the sand and bury their heads behind it.
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Re: The younger generation
I'm in my early 30's. Until a few years ago, where she was finally forced to use a computer at work, my mom would literally break out in a cold sweat if she was sat down in front of a computer. She's had a cell phone for at least 10 years, and just last year, finally figured out how to use voicemail. Her, and people like her proudly exclaim how little they know about any technology.
My dad got a computer about 15 years ago for work, has tooled around here and there for things he wants it to do, asks me questions, learns what he needs/wants to know about them, and incorporates them into his life to make it better. He got a droid recently for the same reason. He may not know nearly as much as I do, but if there's something that will improve on his life, he's glad to know about it and keep learning, despite his age.
Flip-side, I was in college late 90's/early 00's. Freshman year, I had to go help someone down the hall because neither of the people who lived in the room could figure out how to save a file to a floppy disk (and yes, at that point, those were still being quite heavily used for small file transfers)...not because they were so far beyond floppies, but because they had never done anything like that, and a professor was asking for an assignment to be submitted either that way or via e-mail. To this day, I have friends who, if I mention anything more than the absolute most basic thing possible to do with technology, their eyes glaze over and it looks like I'm speaking a foreign language to them.
If I have a question on how to do something or how something works, I ask experts, do research, learn. I don't think that will ever change. I guarantee you, the people who are not willing/are unable to put in time/effort to learn now, were the same way at age 25.
Age has NOTHING to do with this. Intelligence and the desire to learn and grow has EVERYTHING to do with this.
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Sure you can live without knowing, but the number of occasions where it's gonna bite you on the arse is way too big to be ignored if you have any sense.
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In a long winded way I am saying it is a personality type that determines one's drive. In that instant I didn't know or even have any interest in computers. I just knew when turned on the computer acted funny spawning windows on its own and I had to fix it to save face. It wasn't until I had cleaned that machine and it acted normal again that maybe this computer thing should be something I look in to. At that point, for me, computers had all the fun of tinkering and fixing, without all the manual labor and dirt of tinkering with cars, motorcycles, and construction.
So it is in my opinion, that the personality type that goes into politics is not of the type that likes to tinker. They would never work in construction, or do anything that took physical labor and logical thinking. (Not all but most) And the ones that do know better don't dare cross a party line or jeopardize their bribes... er campaign contributions. (See above comment)
I think a lot of users fall into that category.
I think there are a lot that do have the ability, but have no interest in computers or how they work. They can understand just fine. I see light bulb moments everyday. When you explain something to someone you look at and think oh S, they will never get it, and they do quite well. And then there are the static moments where you explain something to a user and all you see in their eyes is static like an off channel. Funny thing is I have noticed in our user base is that it happens more with 20 - 30 somethings. I was responsible for our RSA rollout to end users and had a much easier time with those over 30 than under.
Sorry to be so long winded but I had a special event to support today and was busy from 9:30AM until 10:45PM. I didnt get my fix of TD for the day.
One thing is for sure, if silicon valley poured as much money into br... campaign contributions as Hollyweird did we wouldnt have much to talk about here. G'nite all.
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I don't mind that they do that, actually, but then they run around pretending they know a lot about everything.
Their job is to pass laws. The purpose of most laws is to make some activity illegal. So they must constantly look for activities to make illegal to justify their jobs.
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We know they pass stuff without reading it.
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Re: The younger generation
I agree. And I am flirting with the big 5-0 (two years from now).
I have always pushed whatever technology I have in my possession to the limits - for no other reason than to actually learn the limits of what I can do with it (I've yet to see any manual or other info that really lists this type of info truthfully for any technology). Many of the things in this article are things I have done or came close to doing in my life.
Geez, even when I play computer games, the fun for me comes from exposing programming flaws and using them to my advantage. That IS part of the gaming experience for me.
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Indeed
And yes, Data Breaches will unfortunately continue... When I was in Los Angeles, I had an opportunity to design a iPad/Web-enabled application to HIPPA standards. It was to be deployed in conjunction with a California Department of Health contract, particularly filling a Medicaid requirement.
Now, I had designed and deployed on a HIPPA project prior to this- built a CRM tool to HIPPA standards, and was also familiar with technical APIs and database table-level AES encryption requirements, encryption key rotation, authentication, auditing requirements, as well as million-dollar fines for a breach. I included this in the Statement of Work and application design for some Medicaid or Medicare program, so I was sure it'd be audited.
The client I worked with said the application didn't need these types of security or auditing mechanisms and said "Why are you so worried about security?" even after disclosing potential fines. We had further exchanges, but the application the client desired would still would not be compliant to Federal HIPPA regulations. Yes, they desired a simple records-management tool, but technical requirements surrounding HIPPA dictate the spec too!
I ultimately turned down the contract due to risk surrounding a potential breach, and I couldn't afford some opportunistic, and underemployed Hollywood Attorney trying to get a free lawsuit.
I imagine Skilled Wound Care found a designer to build it to their spec, but after several discussions, including hosting in a DoD-compliant facility, from a recommendation of a former colleague, that also provided physical security, the price for HIPPA-certifable compliance, and security, was higher than expected, but being awarded a contract from a state or federal agency, which should be compliant, is important as well.
So I kinda feel like I need to share that HIPPA programs are important, and so is technology, because often times people will call a $15/hour Geeksquad idiot to tell them how to make something secure.
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Re: Indeed
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These people do not try to understand technology because they believe that their word is law, and that their power will scare people away from doing anything that might annoy them. Emperors and new clothes sums up their attitudes.
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The law of unintended consequences.
Only the white hats will go away.
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Re: The law of unintended consequences.
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Re: The law of unintended consequences.
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I've had people tell me, straight-faced, that they got better bass response using high-quality AC3 cables than cheap ones.
...
So. This morning I was looking at an online photo a customer had sent of a competitor's product, a direct link to the competitor's website. Curious, I tried to view more pictures by removing the filename from the end of the URL. It didn't work, I got an error page; so I backed out to the homepage, from where I was able to find the gallery.
OMG did I just hack their website?!
Some people apparently think so. Sometimes that trick works if the site's administrators haven't locked out the ability to view file directories. Sometimes it doesn't. But is it hacking? Seems to me I vaguely remember some people being prosecuted for doing similar things.
It's not a hack, and it's a natural thing to try if you're just trying to find what files are available. Sometimes it's allowed me to, for example, find documents that were intended to be available, but were mis-named on the site's html, or its name generation code was broken, or some such. Is it hacking then?
Probably. Anything you try that doesn't have a direct stamp of approval from every level of government is hacking, if somebody gets irritated.
We've gone from an open society to a permission-based society. Instead of "all is permitted unless prohibited" it's now "all is prohibited unless permitted." Goes nicely with our change from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent." Or more like "guilty if accused." Proving innocence doesn't seem to do anything except piss off the government that's of the politicians, by the politicians and for the rich.
Sorry for the rant, I'm in a bad mood.
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A URL is a request that can easily be denied. It's knocking on the door, not breaking and entering.
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Instead of "all is permitted unless prohibited" it's now "all is prohibited unless permitted."
Couldn't be more sad but true.
"But is it hacking?" - If an admin has not prohibited directory browsing then no. It is a feature that has not been turned off. If I was ever brought to court on something so absurd it would be easy to show a jury or judge how to turn that feature off. Just bring a laptop with (in my case I run my website on win2008 server and IIS) IIS on it and do it in front of them.
Rant away brother, rant away. Feels so much better when you get it out.
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Members of the jury I will now show you how easy it is for a system administrator to turn option xyz off.
Open the Start Menu, go into the Administrative Tools Menu.
(*gasp* from the jury, but.. but.. that menu is only for the Administrators).
Load "Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager".
(*the jury immediately classifies anyone who can make sense of all those icons and their scary sounding captions like 'Output Caching' 'Worker Processes', '.NET Trust Levels' as a technical Gandalf or a hacking Sauron and you're on trial so you're not dressed in white *)
Drill down into MachineName/Sites/Default Web Site, click on ...
(* the jury have already decided that this is not something that a normal web site administrator could ever be expected to know. Furthermore your dark arts are so powerful that they should immediately call for double the maximum penalty because the people who set the maximum could never have imagined that someone so dangerous could exist on this earth *)
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Prior knowledge?
Moreover, these prosecutors often act as if there are clear lines for what is appropriate behavior, when in reality the only boundaries are those made in trial. Especially given the opacity of most ToS, it should not surprise anyone that it is actually easier to just try something than to understand the ToS. If these prosecutions are good for anything, it is to highlight the stark differences between a world with natural, (generally) inviolable rules -- technology founded on standards and science -- and law, a manmade system interprable by and benefiting (substantially) only those with a career in it. Laws are certainly necessary but they must not artificially or, usually, unintentionally restrict possible uses of technology. Hello CFAA reform.
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What the real problem is, isn't age. It's vested interests paying off for what they want, and illiterate computer users. Here's another news flash, illiterate computer users come in all ages; not restricted to just the elderly.
You know where else this is going to really bite at? The government wants hackers for their cyberwar in both defense and offense. Finding those people with sufficient skills isn't going to be easy when the system sets up a huge barrier talent has to climb just to learn, much less be effective. This same set of skills will be encouraged in other countries seeking to obtain the same. So at what point will the balance tip in favor of the opposition?
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If you add "on the internet" it is a trigger for a portion of the population that it has to be bad. Computers are a kind of black magic that some people refuse to understand. They rely on the lawyers to tell them why this is bad and wrong, and have faith that the system is fair and balanced.
It is becoming clear that the system is being used to protect monied interests who do stupid things. AT&T makes all of these things available, but because someone discovered this he is the bad person. It doesn't matter that someone else could have been doing the same thing and used the information for bad, it matters that he found it and made it public. It is a crime to point out how little corporations care, and that we can't expect them to do their duty to protect consumers.
In the story pointing out the emperor is naked was a good thing, it made people stop accepting what they knew wasn't true and get change. Now it gets you dragged into court and threatened with long prison time, while the emperors are never held to the same standards. The rules are supposed to apply to everyone, not just those you can pressure into accepting your terms so you can record another win towards getting a bonus avoiding the hard or difficult cases that might throw off your stats.
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Old folks and technology
Some of us oldsters are pretty liberal and understand and approve of openness and availability for people to become informed. I think many people who are against this openness really do not understand, but would be sympathetic if things were explained to them in way they (we ) could understand.
And btw, many of us protested the War in Vietnam, so we're not all idiots or frightened. Just ignorant of newer technologies.
peace.
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Re: Old folks and technology
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P.S. My optimized C will run infinite loops around your sloppy Perl, yah whippersnapper.
P.S.S. Obtusity to fact in favor of false but popular paradigms is only a product of age for some. Usually the fight for false is driven by criminal/nefarious intentions.
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Feynman
Look at the bits about safecracking (pp77-83) and the holes in the physical security fence (pp65-66).
"Colonel," I said, in a serious
tone, "let me tell you something about these locks: When the door to the safe or the top
drawer of the filing cabinet is left open, it's very easy for someone to get the combination.
That's what I did while you were reading my report, just to demonstrate the danger. You
should insist that everybody keep their filing cabinet drawers locked while they're
working, because when they're open, they're very, very vulnerable."....
The next time I went to Oak Ridge, all the secretaries and people who knew who I
was were telling me, "Don't come through here! Don't come through here!"
The colonel had sent a note around to everyone in the plant which said, "During
his last visit, was Mr. Feynman at any time in your office, near your office, or walking
through your office?" Some people answered yes; others said no. The ones who said yes
got another note: "Please change the combination of your safe."
That was his solution: I was the danger.
Unfortunately this is nothing to do with computers. It is an old fashioned (analogue if you like - but actually that is a horrible misuse of the word) problem re-incarnated in digital guise.
The so called "old people who don't understand" won't die off - they will be replaced by a new generation of people who don't understand.
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Apparently
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Aaron Swartz walked up to buy something from a cashier. They had a penny tray that said, "Take what you want." After taking a handful of pennies he was charged with theft.
Andrew Auernheimer was talking with an AT&T rep. The rep would give out all their customer information if you said the customers' number. After trying several numbers he ends up with information from multiple customers. I guess AT&T's honesty system wasn't very robust.
Meanwhile, up in Canada, Ahmed Al-Khabaz found that the door to the student records was unlocked. He let them know about the security problem and initially they were happy. A few days later he checked to see if the door was unlocked and open still only to find out that it's illegal to look inside open doors.
The moral of the story is that free isn't, open doors are secure by default and AT&T sucks.
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Times have changed!
Yes, I was a hacker.
I never did any real harm, and like the above mentioned, I was just thirsty for information, I wanted to see if things were secure, or was well it's there may as well have a look.
I never 'stole' information for personal gain, or tried to blackmail anyone. I had complete control over the school systems computer for years. I was just a kid learning about computers.
Now, I am a consultant, and make a very good living because what I did as a kid prepared me for what I do today.
While I know there are technically illiterate people out there, I think the real problem is the insane laws. For instance if I want to watch a DVD on my linux box I have to violate DRM to do it, that is stupid. I bought the DVD, It is my computer in my home connected to my TV, but I have to violate DRM to watch it.
So the real problem is the laws. In many cases they are outdated and in many others they were written only with huge corporate interests in mind. That is where I think the true problem lies.
You can teach a judge or jury about technology, but you can't get most of them to ignore the law.
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In Aaron Swartz's case, the bowl was JSTOR's, and the candy were articles. He took half the bowl. It wasn't criminal. It is a serious Faux-pas, but there was nothing to stop him. But the best part of his 'crime' is when you translate that bowl of candy to the digital realm. No matter how many times Aaron grabs a snickers bar, there is still another snickers bar. The big concern was that he might sell those snickers bars to people instead of them coming by the house the bowl is at. (its not quite perfect, analog to digital never is).
In Andrew Auernheimer's case, The Bowl was AT&T's, and the candy was customer data. He took a little candy. But then he told every kid in town What that candy was and that an unattended bowl of other candy was there. Again, not illegal, just a major Faux-Pas. And he needed to show everyone what candy there was so they knew they could get the candy, or in digital terms, he needed to scrape that data to prove that you could. THere is a new 'security leak' rumor every week. Proof is needed for me to take the latest rumor seriously.
In the third case I can't establish a good framework. But the fact remains that the behavior might be a Faux-Pas, but mearly accessing the data can't be a crime. If it is then security research goes out the window. the third case is a clear case of how you do 'White Hat' security research. You point out a vulnarability. Then you go back and see if it has been fixed, because if it hasn't you need to report it to a wider audience and shame them into fixing the vulnarability.
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Being the key phrase. We as humanity, need to excise this situation.
I think we need to create a register... like a sex-offender's register, but for "important people", who are enemies of the internet, open computing, freedom of information etc etc.
Something that is specifically created with a view to seeing that said individuals lose their jobs, and/or never get elected again.
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Ron White Said It:
Me? Just passin' through.
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In this recontextualization...
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Idiotic
This whole 'punish the people who show us security flaws' trend is ludicrous.
It's equivalent to the Secret Service leaving the gates to the White House wide open, then arresting anyone who noticed it.
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Do you have a citation that accurately describes in detail what is quoted above?
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Nevermind...
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ageist
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Hacking
We (the Scots) invented the prosecution of witches and are seriously considering a copyright violation claim.
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In addition, this is not isolated to one particular country as it is human nature.
Checks and balances are there for a reason and this why they are under constant attack which is quite inefficient at times but the alternative is unacceptable.
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Asleep at the Wheel
Its original purpose appears to have been to draw talent from other regions, often times other nations, and set that person up with a monopoly in order to create "brain drain" as we now know it from the region the person came from originally.
This concept of a "war on technology" is right down my alley, and I am sorry but I haven't got a lot of information gathered yet. Indeed, my current reading projects all have little or nothing to do with it... But I still would be interested to see if anyone else is aware of this idea that IP is actually more about centralized control, and what if any documentation there is to support the idea.
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Steve Jobs and Vint Cerf
How much would you have missed out on if you dismissed these people (and many others) because of their age?
Steve Jobs was 56 when he died, having not slowed down mentally at all.
Tim Berners-Lee is 57. So is Ray Ozzie.
Vint Cerf is 69.
Bob Kahn is in his 70s.
Grace Hopper created one of the world's first compilers in her 40s, set the standards for COBOL and computerized the US Navy in her 50s, and was working until age 85.
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Steve Jobs and Vint Cerf
How much would you have missed out on if you dismissed these people (and many others) because of their age?
Steve Jobs was 56 when he died, having not slowed down mentally at all.
Tim Berners-Lee is 57. So is Ray Ozzie.
Vint Cerf is 69.
Bob Kahn is in his 70s.
Grace Hopper created one of the world's first compilers in her 40s, set the standards for COBOL and computerized the US Navy in her 50s, and was working until age 85.
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Re: Steve Jobs and Vint Cerf
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�goatse tight�
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Afvallen zonder diet
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Afvallen met het Vastendieet
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