Wow indeed, but there are some instances where Lamarckism is considered valid (look up epigenetics). Not that Darryl knows about this, I suspect he is a grandson of Lysenko.
Re: Re: pedantic observation - convoluted but accurate
This is not convoluted at all. I will spell it out for you.
When an IQ test is first constructed, some representative sample of the population takes that test. The median score from that test is assigned an IQ value of 100. The distribution of scores from that test should have a normal distribution (bell curve) with a standard deviation of 15. If the actual distribution didn't match this, the test would be changed so that the result would show this distribution. Revisions of any particular test are re-normalized to match this distribution and thus take into account the Flynn effect.
Any particular person's IQ score is found by taking their score on that particular IQ test and calculating where that score would place them on the above distribution. The standard deviation of 15 means that 95% of all IQ scores fall within 70-130 (2 standard deviations from either side of 100)
Your comment assumes that IQ scores are a "ratio IQ" based on William Stern's method. This was used for children and gives a kind of mental age. This type of test was replaced, starting about 1950, with a test that results in a score reflecting distribution (as described above) rather than mental age. This type of test wasn't useful for adults who have always been given intelligence tests where the score represents a statistical distribution of intelligence rather than a ratio of mental age.
IQs scores have not gone up, it's the IQ test scores that have increased over time. IQ scores derived from the test score are always normalized so that the median is 100.
I don't think a tech would have asked you to reset the router configuration. It would be correct for him to ask you to reset (i.e reboot) the router. This would clear the routing table and, in particular, the arp table. I am guessing there was a miscommunication about what your router's reset button did. Then again, I have a habit of underestimating people's stupidity. Since the button was recessed, (done commonly for making the configuration reset harder) the tech guy is confused and you should complain to the ISP.
Unless, this is being misreported by the media, a false positive rate is a percentage of all passengers screened and is independent of the rate of terrorists bringing weapons or explosives on board. There should be very very few true positives and unless they are an intentional test, the discovery will be publicized.
There is no legal definition for the terms "hacking" and "hacker". In fact, there is no agreed upon definition for hacking. I, as an aging software engineer, have my own preference, which corresponds closely to the original meaning of a skilled programmers actions. I have given up on that preference as I have recognized I cannot fight the direction that our language is going. Mike is using "hacking" in a very broad way. A way that reflects it's very general use nowadays. Yes, there is no reference to "hacking" in the court case, but that does not mean he is lying about the law.
None of Pulte's employees were members of LIUNA. LIUNA argued that the call and email campaign was part of their normal organizing efforts. That does not ring true and the appeals court pointed out that the sales office and 3 executives were the target and not potential union recruits. However, there should be a freedom of speech argument in allowing union members (500,000 of them) to voice their displeasure with a company seen as anti-union. The court is saying that collective campaign, organized by LIUNA, could be intended by them just as a form of harassment against Pulte. Since the form of harassment here affected Pulte's computers negatively, that is a (civil, at least here) violation of the CFAA. Even a slowdown of the computer or forced discarding of incoming email is considered damage.
The cease and desist letter from Pulte said, vaguely, that the calls and emails "prevented Pulte’s employees from doing their jobs". LIUNA, in fact, claimed in a court filing that they were not informed that their conduct was harmful to Pulte's computer systems. The appeals court did not argue that LIUNA was informed. Their argument was that knowledge of damage was the wrong standard to show intent. The appeals court said that the proper standard was just to show that LIUNA intended to cause damage. The case has been remanded to the District Court, so the question of intent is still to be decided.
It is possible that LIUNA intended to harass Pulte with a limited DOS attack. It is also possible that DOS wasn't their goal. You have to take a closer look at what was done.
LIUNA put out a call on their website to make calls to Pulte and to email them. They set up a pre-written letter which any member could click on and cause a separate email to be sent. LIUNA has 500,000 members. Even if all 500,000 sent an email this way, it would be hard to argue that that action was illegal. Such mass, topic oriented, email campaigns are done elsewhere, and should be protected under first amendment freedom of speech. Now, if a single person had caused hundreds, or thousands of emails to be sent, that would be a scenario accurately described as a DOS attack.
The use of an autodialer sounds suspicious. I do not know how it was used. It is possible that the autodialer was used similarly to the emails. The website could have allowed a member to click on a button that caused the autodialer to send a pre-recorded voice message to a Pulte phone number. That would not be much different than the email scenario and should also be protected under the first amendment. On the other hand, if the autodialer was programmed to just automatically, and continuously, call and leave messages, that would be a DOS attack.
An interesting aspect of this case is that even if this was a kind of DOS attack, the capabilities of the computer to resist such damage is taken into account. Pulte claims they had to "shut down their email in boxes". I am sure what really happens is that once the box is full new incoming emails are automatically discarded. What if the email in-boxes were capable of handling 200,000 messages, would there still be a case? Pulte claimed they could not send emails. That is most certainly wrong. I suspect they were being intentionally vague in describing that they could not respond to emails because it took too much time to filter through the spam or were automatically discarded. If they could still send emails, would there still be a case? finally, any email client or server created in the last decade (at least) is capable of filtering out some spam. The easiest thing to filter out are identical messages all coming from the same address. Most of the emails were from the LIUNA server via their website trigger. If Pulte could have easily filtered out all those emails, why didn't they and would there still be a case?
My suspicion is that both LIUNA and Pulte are harassing each other in anyway they can. The fact that Pulte is using the court system for a case that shouldn't really exist may be legal but is unethical.
Re: Misleading article . . .I expect better of Techdirt
The posting in "out-law.com" misunderstood the court's judgement. The court was addressing Pulte's complaint where they claimed both a "transmission" and an "access without authorization" violation in the context of the CFAA. The appeals court agreed with the district court that the access portion of the claim was not valid as LIUNA had a right (i.e. was authorized to) make calls and send emails to Pulte. However, the appeals court reversed the district court's decision and allowed the transmission claim.
Also, this case is not over. It has been remanded back to the district court.
Re: I also noted their "technical difficulties" with a dual-boot system
I may get into trouble saying this, but once a forensic analyst copies the hard drive they can give the computer back. Copying the hard drive should nearly always be the very first step. If the computer is turned off when law enforcement obtains custody, making a copy should always be the first step. Since a copy is made at a very low level without booting the target system, there is no consideration, at this step, of how the drive is formatted or how many different file systems there are. Why do they keep your computer for extended periods? The short answer is vindictive extrajudicial punishment.
The way that the term "signalling information" is used in the U.S. does not include any header in the entire protocol stack. The signalling information is "out of band". Look up SS7 and how it is used in the Telcom world. What I am not absolutely sure about is how that term is being used by Pakistan in this law. If, in fact, they are referring to any header information then you are absolutely right as "No sane business would operate with their data following over an open network without encryption".
Describing a gene as not ever existing separately in nature from a much larger DNA molecule ignores four things that I can think of offhand.
1). After transcription to RNA, the translation machinery that is used to make proteins during gene expression chemically isolates a gene. That is not to say all the covalent bonds to the larger DNA molecule are cleaved, but that the chemical behavior of the DNA fragment that is a gene is isolated.
2). the existence in nature of restriction enzymes that do cleave DNA molecules at specific sites.
3). Recombination, both meiotic and mitotic, on the same chromosome. This most commonly involves groups of genes but recombination where a single gene is involved is theoretically possible.
4). Transposons. I don't know enough about genetics to know if a single-gene transposon has been discovered. Regardless, it shows that a DNA molecule is not the unbroken set of genes as characterized in this ruling.
My reading of the regulation is that Pakistan is requiring that all traffic can be monitored and that the signaling information cannot be encrypted. I could be wrong, but my understanding of the term "signaling information" is the set of mechanisms and algorithms allowing for call setup and breakdown, billing, and administrative functions. It seems to me the actual traffic, be it voice or data, can be encrypted but their has to be a way for the monitoring system to understand it (i.e. a backdoor).
This backdoor is what a lot of governments desire. It is a way to obtain a key for any cipher used. This will make it far easier to track and prosecute or persecute all criminals, both real and political. This is not foolproof. If illegal encryption is used, the government could possibly identify the communication endpoints and prosecute just on the basis of utilizing an illegal cipher. Smart criminals and dissidents will resort to using strong, illegal encryption along with steganography and traffic obfuscation (i.e. Tor Onion Routers). The technology that would make the system functional on a general basis is automatic flagging or filtering of packets identified as using illegal encryption. In the U.S., considering that the NSA is already monitoring all our communications, this is not far-fetched.
When strong encryption, encryption that the U.S. federal government couldn't defeat, became available to the masses in the early '90s, the U.S. became involved in two separate struggles. One was the export of strong cryptography and the main battle was with PGP and Phil Zimmermann. The feds dropped their indictment of Mr. Zimmermann without any comment. The code had been exported, but it was not clear that Phil was instrumental in doing that. Later, court precedents did allow algorithms for strong cryptography to be published and exported, protected as free speech by the first amendment. The feds did relax the rules on export, recognizing their futility because of the free speech aspect and also recognizing that it hurt U.S. business by restricting the use of strong encryption in international transactions.
The other front in the strong cryptography battle was the feds attempt to put backdoors in any system using cryptography. The Clipper chip was an effort to do this for voice transmission. It was not mandatory, and the existence of alternatives and the fact that the algorithms behind clipper were classified and could not be independently evaluated for vulnerabilities led to it's demise.
Why wouldn't the U.S. government be successful in making backdoors mandatory for all strong ciphers? Business needs strong encryption for both domestic and international transactions. A U.S. business might not trust having a backdoor available even if that backdoor is supposedly restricted with a key escrow system. More importantly, would a foreign business trust the U.S.? Such a requirement would have put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage in international competition.
France, in the mid '90s had very strong restrictions on the use of cryptography. France's decision to drop their strict cryptography laws came about because of lobbying from businesses. This link briefly describes that decision and humorously gets the French Finance Minister's gender wrong (it was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, yes, that DSK!). http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/
If you think that the U.S. will never have laws restricting the use of cryptography, think again. There have been laws introduced that would make the use of cryptography an enhancement when committing a felony. Consider also, the slow but steady expansion of CALEA regulations.
The U.S. government, in particular the Bush administration, has also gagged scientists. If the scientist works for an agency of the U.S. government and the research is around a topic that is a political hot button, you can bet that it will be "spokesman" and not the scientists who are allowed to talk.
"At a news conference, Fish and Wildlife Director H. Dale Hall denied that the memos were a form of censorship. He described the content of the documents as part of a policy to establish an agenda and the appropriate spokesperson for international meetings."
Your parents, working in collaboration, created your DNA. So, you should be asking what incentive did they have. You are right though, if we let them take away our DNA property rights no one is going to engage in sex and we'll see the collapse of human civilization and the end to humans as a species.
My feeling is that while it was reasonable for the court to conclude that Moore shouldn't be entitled to any money by applying a tort for property conversion to his lymphocytes, UC shouldn't be allowed to patent that cell line. It is not clear to me though, by glancing at that patent, if the patent covers just the cell line and the molecules it excretes or also the ability to maintain that type of cell.
Imagine if the HeLa cell line, taken without informed consent from Henrietta Lacks in 1951, was patented. Would all the benefits from widespread research on this line have occurred? Additionally, since HeLa has acted like a weed contaminating many cell lines, would patent considerations complicate all the research that might possibly have, HeLa contaminated, cell lines?
I wasn't really criticizing you. I think there might actually be a valid role for using video games to train soldiers and realism would then be important. The military would be idiotic to try to use them to desensitize soldiers to real violence however. I am baffled as to why Breivik even mentions anything about training. A shooting range is sufficient for what he did.
What I am waiting for is the finger pointing towards the police for allowing the shooter 1 1/2 hours before they came to accept his surrender. Apparently, they even had a helicopter available. In the U.S. that issue would be already be seeing impassioned debate, much like during Columbine. Is this a Norwegian vs American cultural difference?
I agree that the salient point is Mike's lack of mention of the mainstream media. Mr. "citation needed" does not refer to an article supporting a connection. Rather, he/she is claiming there was no citation "reporting the link" between Breivik and violent video games.
On the post: Could The Internet & Television Be Making Everyone Smarter?
Re: Re: Re: educational techniques - evolution
On the post: Could The Internet & Television Be Making Everyone Smarter?
Re: Re: pedantic observation - convoluted but accurate
When an IQ test is first constructed, some representative sample of the population takes that test. The median score from that test is assigned an IQ value of 100. The distribution of scores from that test should have a normal distribution (bell curve) with a standard deviation of 15. If the actual distribution didn't match this, the test would be changed so that the result would show this distribution. Revisions of any particular test are re-normalized to match this distribution and thus take into account the Flynn effect.
Any particular person's IQ score is found by taking their score on that particular IQ test and calculating where that score would place them on the above distribution. The standard deviation of 15 means that 95% of all IQ scores fall within 70-130 (2 standard deviations from either side of 100)
Your comment assumes that IQ scores are a "ratio IQ" based on William Stern's method. This was used for children and gives a kind of mental age. This type of test was replaced, starting about 1950, with a test that results in a score reflecting distribution (as described above) rather than mental age. This type of test wasn't useful for adults who have always been given intelligence tests where the score represents a statistical distribution of intelligence rather than a ratio of mental age.
On the post: Could The Internet & Television Be Making Everyone Smarter?
pedantic observation
On the post: Motion To Quash Against Copyright Troll Explains How IP Address Does Not ID User
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: German Police Admit That Full Body Naked Airport Scanners Suck; 35% False Alarm Rate
Re: So if there are false positives . . .
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp_rpt_86v13.pdf
On the post: German Police Admit That Full Body Naked Airport Scanners Suck; 35% False Alarm Rate
Re: more than once?
On the post: Court Says Sending Too Many Emails To Someone Is Computer Hacking
Re: Please don't lie about the law.
On the post: Court Says Sending Too Many Emails To Someone Is Computer Hacking
Re:
On the post: Court Says Sending Too Many Emails To Someone Is Computer Hacking
Re: Re: Re:
It is possible that LIUNA intended to harass Pulte with a limited DOS attack. It is also possible that DOS wasn't their goal. You have to take a closer look at what was done.
LIUNA put out a call on their website to make calls to Pulte and to email them. They set up a pre-written letter which any member could click on and cause a separate email to be sent. LIUNA has 500,000 members. Even if all 500,000 sent an email this way, it would be hard to argue that that action was illegal. Such mass, topic oriented, email campaigns are done elsewhere, and should be protected under first amendment freedom of speech. Now, if a single person had caused hundreds, or thousands of emails to be sent, that would be a scenario accurately described as a DOS attack.
The use of an autodialer sounds suspicious. I do not know how it was used. It is possible that the autodialer was used similarly to the emails. The website could have allowed a member to click on a button that caused the autodialer to send a pre-recorded voice message to a Pulte phone number. That would not be much different than the email scenario and should also be protected under the first amendment. On the other hand, if the autodialer was programmed to just automatically, and continuously, call and leave messages, that would be a DOS attack.
An interesting aspect of this case is that even if this was a kind of DOS attack, the capabilities of the computer to resist such damage is taken into account. Pulte claims they had to "shut down their email in boxes". I am sure what really happens is that once the box is full new incoming emails are automatically discarded. What if the email in-boxes were capable of handling 200,000 messages, would there still be a case? Pulte claimed they could not send emails. That is most certainly wrong. I suspect they were being intentionally vague in describing that they could not respond to emails because it took too much time to filter through the spam or were automatically discarded. If they could still send emails, would there still be a case? finally, any email client or server created in the last decade (at least) is capable of filtering out some spam. The easiest thing to filter out are identical messages all coming from the same address. Most of the emails were from the LIUNA server via their website trigger. If Pulte could have easily filtered out all those emails, why didn't they and would there still be a case?
My suspicion is that both LIUNA and Pulte are harassing each other in anyway they can. The fact that Pulte is using the court system for a case that shouldn't really exist may be legal but is unethical.
On the post: Court Says Sending Too Many Emails To Someone Is Computer Hacking
Re: Misleading article . . .I expect better of Techdirt
Also, this case is not over. It has been remanded back to the district court.
On the post: Feds Say They Can Search Bradley Manning's Friend's Laptop Because They Can
Re: Rules
On the post: Feds Say They Can Search Bradley Manning's Friend's Laptop Because They Can
Re: I also noted their "technical difficulties" with a dual-boot system
On the post: Reports Claim That Pakistan Is Trying To Ban Encryption Under Telco Law
Re: Re: It's not about banning cryptography
On the post: Appeals Court Says Genes Are Patentable, Because They're 'Separate' From Your DNA
1). After transcription to RNA, the translation machinery that is used to make proteins during gene expression chemically isolates a gene. That is not to say all the covalent bonds to the larger DNA molecule are cleaved, but that the chemical behavior of the DNA fragment that is a gene is isolated.
2). the existence in nature of restriction enzymes that do cleave DNA molecules at specific sites.
3). Recombination, both meiotic and mitotic, on the same chromosome. This most commonly involves groups of genes but recombination where a single gene is involved is theoretically possible.
4). Transposons. I don't know enough about genetics to know if a single-gene transposon has been discovered. Regardless, it shows that a DNA molecule is not the unbroken set of genes as characterized in this ruling.
On the post: Reports Claim That Pakistan Is Trying To Ban Encryption Under Telco Law
It's not about banning cryptography
This backdoor is what a lot of governments desire. It is a way to obtain a key for any cipher used. This will make it far easier to track and prosecute or persecute all criminals, both real and political. This is not foolproof. If illegal encryption is used, the government could possibly identify the communication endpoints and prosecute just on the basis of utilizing an illegal cipher. Smart criminals and dissidents will resort to using strong, illegal encryption along with steganography and traffic obfuscation (i.e. Tor Onion Routers). The technology that would make the system functional on a general basis is automatic flagging or filtering of packets identified as using illegal encryption. In the U.S., considering that the NSA is already monitoring all our communications, this is not far-fetched.
When strong encryption, encryption that the U.S. federal government couldn't defeat, became available to the masses in the early '90s, the U.S. became involved in two separate struggles. One was the export of strong cryptography and the main battle was with PGP and Phil Zimmermann. The feds dropped their indictment of Mr. Zimmermann without any comment. The code had been exported, but it was not clear that Phil was instrumental in doing that. Later, court precedents did allow algorithms for strong cryptography to be published and exported, protected as free speech by the first amendment. The feds did relax the rules on export, recognizing their futility because of the free speech aspect and also recognizing that it hurt U.S. business by restricting the use of strong encryption in international transactions.
The other front in the strong cryptography battle was the feds attempt to put backdoors in any system using cryptography. The Clipper chip was an effort to do this for voice transmission. It was not mandatory, and the existence of alternatives and the fact that the algorithms behind clipper were classified and could not be independently evaluated for vulnerabilities led to it's demise.
Why wouldn't the U.S. government be successful in making backdoors mandatory for all strong ciphers? Business needs strong encryption for both domestic and international transactions. A U.S. business might not trust having a backdoor available even if that backdoor is supposedly restricted with a key escrow system. More importantly, would a foreign business trust the U.S.? Such a requirement would have put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage in international competition.
France, in the mid '90s had very strong restrictions on the use of cryptography. France's decision to drop their strict cryptography laws came about because of lobbying from businesses. This link briefly describes that decision and humorously gets the French Finance Minister's gender wrong (it was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, yes, that DSK!).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/
If you think that the U.S. will never have laws restricting the use of cryptography, think again. There have been laws introduced that would make the use of cryptography an enhancement when committing a felony. Consider also, the slow but steady expansion of CALEA regulations.
The following is a good summary of existing crypto-law in various contries:
http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/cryptolaw/
On the post: Canadian Officials Censoring Scientists Whose Results They Don't Like
Not just Canada
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/POLARBEAR.TMP
"At a news conference, Fish and Wildlife Director H. Dale Hall denied that the memos were a form of censorship. He described the content of the documents as part of a policy to establish an agenda and the appropriate spokesperson for international meetings."
On the post: Do You Have Property Rights Over Your DNA?
Re: Incentive
On the post: Do You Have Property Rights Over Your DNA?
Re: Property rights in tissue - unforeseen costs
Imagine if the HeLa cell line, taken without informed consent from Henrietta Lacks in 1951, was patented. Would all the benefits from widespread research on this line have occurred? Additionally, since HeLa has acted like a weed contaminating many cell lines, would patent considerations complicate all the research that might possibly have, HeLa contaminated, cell lines?
On the post: And Here Comes The Video Game Backlash Due To The Norway Tragedy
Re: Re: Re:
What I am waiting for is the finger pointing towards the police for allowing the shooter 1 1/2 hours before they came to accept his surrender. Apparently, they even had a helicopter available. In the U.S. that issue would be already be seeing impassioned debate, much like during Columbine. Is this a Norwegian vs American cultural difference?
On the post: And Here Comes The Video Game Backlash Due To The Norway Tragedy
Re: Re: Re: Citation?
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