The idea that it's about providing the best product at the best price always was BS.
No, it was just always an option. There've been many very good companies which, through their great work and understanding of the philosophy and their business, gave their customers the best they could give them, even as they controlled a monopoly. They preferred to play the long game.
Others ran to politicians to get self-serving laws passed to screw their customers and benefit their shareholders with quick and short term profits.
It's sad both approaches have so far remained both profitable and legal. One should have supplanted the other by now as being far more logical, profitable, effective, but politicians ...
Meanwhile in Europe, which actually has free competition between vendors and are considering outlawing roaming fees within EU, people pay far less for far better and faster service. Huh.
You suckers ought to be storming their gates for this abusive behavior. They should be crucified for proposing it.
Yeah, they say it's outright theft! As if they get to pump craptastic ads none of which I ever care about, regardless of their network efficiency onto my computer, all reporting back to hundreds of data aggregators feeding my data to ad servers, while both cores of my aging CPU blast away at 50% utilization after loading the page threatening to crash my computer.
Bite. Me! They're doin' it wrong and should die screaming in a fire.
They even lose, or actively hunt down and delete for security reasons, service records forcing vets to spend years fighting to reclaim their rights to benefits. You cycle back home to the states to be decommissioned, and the new commander in the field is ordering a wipe of every hard drive and backup storage medium. Thanks to computers, this becomes easier to do every year.
This doesn't change and has been fought against unsuccessfully ever since the Revolutionary War. Screw the troops. Fire and forget.
Re: "we have a serious level of stupid in the DOD"
... this is an alleged military command that was unable to defend its own headquarters from attack on 9/11 ...
Not only that. There are people out there who dispute that building was actually attacked. What? The Pentagon isn't drowning in CCTV security cameras?!? How did that happen? I would have had high resolution cameras locked onto it from satellites in orbit, minimum!
Re: Taking a moment to blue-sky a radical notion...
What would happen if the next time some government spy database is hacked instead it just gets dumped to the public?
That is punishing exactly the wrong people, the victims. However, if the data's scrubbed of PII first, it might be effective and benign.
I mean, it's post Ashley-Madison, why haven't we learned this already?
They don't have to. It took more than a decade for businesses I worked for to twig to the fact that telnet, ftp, and rsh transfer passwords in cleartext visible to any sniffer (wireshark) on the network, so they should stop using them. When we went to wifi over ethernet, it was a disastrous idea to continue using them, but they did anyway. I even had to warn a large Canadian university they were running finger (a stalker's dream).
Lacking accountability, there is no liability, and no need to improve or even catch up, but don't make the victims pay the price.
But some scientists argue that their need to access the latest knowledge justifies flouting the law, and they're using a Twitter hashtag to help pirate scientific papers.
Any lawyers out there doing anything to advance scientific research? Thought not. So shut up. BTW, it's not "pirating" (assholes).
The legal system should not be at all surprised that phenomena like this happens. Nor will it ever stop. Assholes.
It creates tools and incentives for widespread censorship of lots of perfectly factual information ...
It enables lawyers, of the ambulance chasing variety, of course, to do anything they can damned well get away with.
So, if I cut&paste a New York Times article into my personal Wordpress blog, I now get to be the publisher of record, and NYT isn't going to come after me for that? Sweet! I'll be rich!
As a long time reader of RISKS Digest, it's sad it was so easy to write that. We could collectively have focused on bulletproofing, but the authorities decided on prosecution as the shorter course. Revolution and civil war, anyone? I'm game. Beats !@#$ like this.
The game's changed. When the authorities are reliant upon black arts, it's illegal to dabble in black arts if you wish to live freely. Might makes right, and all. New rules, which you ignore at your peril. The Emperor spoke. Thus is your new reality. In the word (!) of The Borg, "Comply!"
I'm a tech. I have always wanted "techie scum" to die. I've long tired of cleaning up their messes. If it's not going to be done right, don't do it, and if it's not broken, don't fix it! "Great, you're an engineer. Just don't touch anything!" There are "Sun Certified" engineers out there who can't list the contents of a directory! Aka, techie scum.
I hope that's offended enough people, but I'm sure I could improve it if I were begged. Throwing money might help.
You pay taxes to the government to protect you. Unfortunately, the nature of the protection is the same the Mafia provides.
I recommend Harry Sidebottom's novels about Imperial Rome. The guy on the street two thousand years ago didn't think all that differently about his gov't from what we're reading about right now. That's two thousand years of treading water while listening to platitudes from liars on high, who're all just looking for a chance to stab you in the back or worse. We suck at being a sentient species.
I only wonder why it was the Italians (or Egyptians, or Persians) who pulled it all together first. Maybe just "location, location, location", as in real estate.
You forget the IRS is even more special than all the other special agencies. They even have their own court system, and armed robbery doesn't apply when they do it.
This says to the rest of the world, kill US service members on sight the moment you think you can get away with it. It's just self-defence 101. If they didn't want that, they shouldn't have been there.
If the US won't even protect its own citizens, they're little better than loose cannons to the rest of the world. Do not need, at all.
So how about this: The FBI investigates the oligarchy a little. Maybe lock up some AIG guys and some racist cops. Perhaps that will result in less protests?
Nope, not good enough. The insults run too deep, and I'm gettin' old. I want to see heads on pikes all along the roadside and corpses rotting on crosses where there's still room.
Once more with feeling: You don't *have* to be an asshole. Try harder!
I don't believe he knows what he's talking about, or he's lying and expecting to get away with no-one questioning his words. What is "mass surveillance?" Of course, a plane flying overhead employing Stingray tech is surveilling the mass of people on the ground below it, else what is it doing?
However, I'm not sure it's wrong for them to do this except in the USA with your fourth amendment. I see nothing terribly wrong with it, and even consider it smart use of technology by the cops. I would worry about the NSA storing records of my movements for decades for future cops to datamine and troll through, but once they determine all the crimes detected by said surveillance had been solved and perpetrators arrested, they delete the data, I'm satisfied with it. Good for them. It's very unintrusive minimizing potentially hostile meetings of alleged perps and cops, and it gathers concrete evidence which should be usable in court at their leisure, at very little cost.
They've just got to figure out how to fit the fourth in there somewhere.
On the post: With 12% Of Comcast Customers Now Broadband Capped, Comcast Declares It's Simply Spreading 'Fairness'
Re: That's Capitalism
No, it was just always an option. There've been many very good companies which, through their great work and understanding of the philosophy and their business, gave their customers the best they could give them, even as they controlled a monopoly. They preferred to play the long game.
Others ran to politicians to get self-serving laws passed to screw their customers and benefit their shareholders with quick and short term profits.
It's sad both approaches have so far remained both profitable and legal. One should have supplanted the other by now as being far more logical, profitable, effective, but politicians ...
On the post: With 12% Of Comcast Customers Now Broadband Capped, Comcast Declares It's Simply Spreading 'Fairness'
Re: I'm (not very) shocked!
You suckers ought to be storming their gates for this abusive behavior. They should be crucified for proposing it.
On the post: With 12% Of Comcast Customers Now Broadband Capped, Comcast Declares It's Simply Spreading 'Fairness'
Re: Re:
Yeah, they say it's outright theft! As if they get to pump craptastic ads none of which I ever care about, regardless of their network efficiency onto my computer, all reporting back to hundreds of data aggregators feeding my data to ad servers, while both cores of my aging CPU blast away at 50% utilization after loading the page threatening to crash my computer.
Bite. Me! They're doin' it wrong and should die screaming in a fire.
On the post: French Restaurants: Home Cooking Really Is Killing The Restaurant Industry!
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah well, look at what the British are doing. And USA. And most of the rest. Okay, British cooking may have improved some. Some!
At least the French are good at that snooty nose-in-the-air pose of theirs, and it seems their only imperial ambitions relate to Syria these days.
On the post: DOD Was Apparently Sending Trademark Notices To Veterans Groups Over Military Seals
Re:
This doesn't change and has been fought against unsuccessfully ever since the Revolutionary War. Screw the troops. Fire and forget.
On the post: DOD Was Apparently Sending Trademark Notices To Veterans Groups Over Military Seals
Re: "we have a serious level of stupid in the DOD"
Not only that. There are people out there who dispute that building was actually attacked. What? The Pentagon isn't drowning in CCTV security cameras?!? How did that happen? I would have had high resolution cameras locked onto it from satellites in orbit, minimum!
On the post: EFF Discovers More Leaky ALPR Cameras Accessible Via The Web
Re: Heads Up
Perhaps your agency should have sprung the beans to pay for the ongoing support contract. Cheapskates.
On the post: EFF Discovers More Leaky ALPR Cameras Accessible Via The Web
Re: Taking a moment to blue-sky a radical notion...
That is punishing exactly the wrong people, the victims. However, if the data's scrubbed of PII first, it might be effective and benign.
They don't have to. It took more than a decade for businesses I worked for to twig to the fact that telnet, ftp, and rsh transfer passwords in cleartext visible to any sniffer (wireshark) on the network, so they should stop using them. When we went to wifi over ethernet, it was a disastrous idea to continue using them, but they did anyway. I even had to warn a large Canadian university they were running finger (a stalker's dream).
Lacking accountability, there is no liability, and no need to improve or even catch up, but don't make the victims pay the price.
On the post: Copyright Fail: 'Pirating' Academic Papers Not Only Commonplace, But Now Seen As Mainstream
Assholes.
Any lawyers out there doing anything to advance scientific research? Thought not. So shut up. BTW, it's not "pirating" (assholes).
The legal system should not be at all surprised that phenomena like this happens. Nor will it ever stop. Assholes.
Stupid law. Assholes.
On the post: Right To Be Forgotten Now Lives In Australia: Court Says Google Is The 'Publisher' Of Material It Links To
Woohoo, I'm a publisher!!!!!1!
It enables lawyers, of the ambulance chasing variety, of course, to do anything they can damned well get away with.
So, if I cut&paste a New York Times article into my personal Wordpress blog, I now get to be the publisher of record, and NYT isn't going to come after me for that? Sweet! I'll be rich!
On the post: Given Spy Agencies' Love For Exploits And Malware, It's Never Been More Dangerous To Be A Security Researcher
Re: Welcome to the 21st Century.
On the post: Given Spy Agencies' Love For Exploits And Malware, It's Never Been More Dangerous To Be A Security Researcher
Welcome to the 21st Century.
On the post: 'Hate Speech' Laws Are Just Another Way For Governments To Punish People They Don't Like
Re: Re: Re:
"Your gov't" is not really *your* gov't. It apparently never really has been. It did try for a while, but has long since given that up as unworkable.
On the post: 'Hate Speech' Laws Are Just Another Way For Governments To Punish People They Don't Like
"... techie scum to die."
I hope that's offended enough people, but I'm sure I could improve it if I were begged. Throwing money might help.
On the post: Court: Your Fourth And Fifth Amendment Rights No Longer Exist If You Leave The Country
"Hail Caesar" vs. "sic semper tyrannis".
I recommend Harry Sidebottom's novels about Imperial Rome. The guy on the street two thousand years ago didn't think all that differently about his gov't from what we're reading about right now. That's two thousand years of treading water while listening to platitudes from liars on high, who're all just looking for a chance to stab you in the back or worse. We suck at being a sentient species.
I only wonder why it was the Italians (or Egyptians, or Persians) who pulled it all together first. Maybe just "location, location, location", as in real estate.
On the post: Court: Your Fourth And Fifth Amendment Rights No Longer Exist If You Leave The Country
Re: Re: Re: And of course...
On the post: Court: Your Fourth And Fifth Amendment Rights No Longer Exist If You Leave The Country
Too bad, US service members.
If the US won't even protect its own citizens, they're little better than loose cannons to the rest of the world. Do not need, at all.
On the post: FBI Director Finally Starts Answering Questions About Its Surveillance Flights Over US Cities
Re: Who Watches the Watchers?
The FBI still believes in security through obscurity. I wonder how that gets changed.
On the post: FBI Director Finally Starts Answering Questions About Its Surveillance Flights Over US Cities
Re: And the downlink transmission logs?
Nope, not good enough. The insults run too deep, and I'm gettin' old. I want to see heads on pikes all along the roadside and corpses rotting on crosses where there's still room.
Once more with feeling: You don't *have* to be an asshole. Try harder!
On the post: FBI Director Finally Starts Answering Questions About Its Surveillance Flights Over US Cities
Re: The government who cried 'Terrorist!'
I don't believe he knows what he's talking about, or he's lying and expecting to get away with no-one questioning his words. What is "mass surveillance?" Of course, a plane flying overhead employing Stingray tech is surveilling the mass of people on the ground below it, else what is it doing?
However, I'm not sure it's wrong for them to do this except in the USA with your fourth amendment. I see nothing terribly wrong with it, and even consider it smart use of technology by the cops. I would worry about the NSA storing records of my movements for decades for future cops to datamine and troll through, but once they determine all the crimes detected by said surveillance had been solved and perpetrators arrested, they delete the data, I'm satisfied with it. Good for them. It's very unintrusive minimizing potentially hostile meetings of alleged perps and cops, and it gathers concrete evidence which should be usable in court at their leisure, at very little cost.
They've just got to figure out how to fit the fourth in there somewhere.
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