Posts by Mark 85 12882 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Nov 2012
<sniffs> <looks for the money trail> So who's attempting to pull this one off? This has a feeling like the Winklevoss twins are behind it. They invested heavily in it and are (or maybe were by now) the biggest cheerleaders for the currency. I'm guessing that they're losing money as the market falls. Other than shady malware types and drug purveyors.. is there really a valid use for it? I know the arguments but does anyone actually use Bitcoins on a daily basis? That will be real test.
If, we take the referenced commenters in the article seriously, then why is NSA still slurping the metadata? One other article I read on this and that other rulings lately, pointed out that basically the courts will take no action except to "ask " Congress to fix the law and clarify it. Which means that if they kill it, then the collection will have been illegal and no one takes the heat (oops.;.. we blew it) or Congress will authorize it and what was shady will now be legal.
I'm not going to even try to speculate what's coming down the road at us as Congress seems pretty much all over the map on the so-called FREEDOM Act as well as the renewal of the PATRIOT Act. (god.. who names these things? Is there a department for that?) I don't believe for a minute though, that domestic spying will go away.
I'm sorry that our neighbors to the north are getting sucked into the surveillance maelstrom. The West has become no different than the East. The Cold War meant nothing as everyone is ending up in the same place.
While surveillance might be needed, it's the application and unbridled power that's been given along with interpretation of "terrorist" that is scariest part. I suspect at some point, those of us who protest anything... even Daylight Saving Time, will be classified as terrorists and need some time in the re-education centers.
A key is fine if you have a free hand. Place yourself in the position of someone with hands full of shopping and a small child in tow....
Been doing that all my life. Never needed an electric remote door lock on the house. I don't need one on the car but it's standard equipment these days....
According to some studies, that "ultra-religious" is only certain ones at the top. The rest are just guys (mostly) who are bomb happy. So sexual innuendo will still a problem. It's not all that it appears over there... remember Bin Laden's supposed porn stash? It could be a problem then.....
The vision is to have the DNA info available and on a supposedly secure device, so that researchers can access it only with your permission. One problem is what if the researchers share the info?
If it were the police/government doing this there would be a huge uproar. Since it's Apple, all is well in the walled-garden. Your data is safe...for some value of "safe".
This can be good for research or very bad for people... I'm thinking hacks on the data, law-enforcement abuse, and myriad other problems this can open up.
Name the last time you closed a greater than thousand dollar a deal without checking your smart phone.
Never. I do my research before I go to the car lot. Same when we bought our house. We did our research ahead of time and very in depth. When I walk into the shark tank, I go fully armed (informed) and not scrambling at the last minute with a smartphone. I keep assorted hard copy print outs in the car just in case and I know what I expect to pay. They jack me around, I'm off to see someone else.
Just think... scale it up and power houses, offices, and factories! No more of those nasty power plants to foul the water, the air, or (in some cases) not generate a nuclear disaster!!!! Why it could even power such cars as the Tesla without ever having to stop at a charging station. Wow...!!!!
No scenario works. These breach reports show up in the mainstream media but not places like FB. In the mainstream, it seems that after sports and whatever celeb news is read, everything else is ignored.
However, if you get a mail from a company offering you "protection" because they'd been hacked, don't use the CC or debit card there. But, judging from what I've seen, a certain discount department store still offers it's card and customers still get one with nothing ever said about their past breach.
Maybe the masses accept the "your privacy is very important to us" as meaningful?
Paraphrased: Fool me once (about your computer security), shame on you. Fool me twice (about your computer security), shame on me. Followed by: I'm gone, never to give you my CC again.
I sometimes wonder about customers in the US... we just keep going back to companies that pay lip service to security.
Downvotes you are getting for several reasons probably.
1) The Apple fanbois don't like to hear that Apples tactics and ethics are being questioned.
2) The Aussies don't want to hear that they shouldn't get a piece of the Apple pie and maybe (fat chance) have their personal taxes reduced.
3) And probably this is a biggie... it's sheer emotionalism and nationalism at work here.
My rather simplistic view is that any country that is managing to extract any tax from a corporation should be grateful. Otherwise, corporations will country shop and find a better tax deal somewhere else. Yes, there are taxes being paid by said corporation to a given country: income tax for the troops, levies for benefits (such as Social Security here in the States where they match the employees amount), property taxes, etc.
Let the downvotes flow... companies are only people legally. The people in the company and who invest (there's some right bastards) in the company are the real people and it's not the workerbees who make the policies or decide how to maximize the profit for the investors.
Europe's cards are only "safer" until the US converts over... then everyone is fair game. And it does look like the US is converting over. My newest card has both the magstrip and the chip&pin.
I suppose the magstrip will go away once the chip&pin become universal?
The proposed budget for NASA has some cuts in it. The biggest one being the "earth sciences' budget. It looks like the Repubs are living in climate change denial and don't want NASA proving them right or wrong. So... this may not be completed unless NASA juggles their budget.
So the rest of the world is unhappy but I'd bet that Ireland is very happy... I'm sure there's an object lesson in there for the rest of the world about taxes.
In some ways, government should operate like businesses as I see nothing wrong with Dropbox (and others) using existing laws to get the best tax rate. Hell, I would do it for my personal taxes if I could and I believe that every working person in most countries would if they could also.
I'm thinking that the greatest fear will what can be the result of the Law of Unintended Consequences. If AI designers and builders (for lack of a better word) are altruistic and have only good in mind, the can be bizarre consequences as Bostram points out. Then there's the side that has an intended goal and things get out of hand, such as DARPA. I'm not picking on them, as it could be any country but they're a bit more public than some other agencies and countries.
The problem is there's much development going on. Peer review is great for public things but much of this is or will be developed in secrecy. The logical response is a fail-safe system but it has to be designed in. Such as the example of the paper clip factories. What would limit them? If AI develops self-awareness such that self-preservation becomes a goal, what limits that? Can anyone say for sure that proper ethics can be designed in or will it need to be a learned behavior? Lots of questions still remain besides development and design.
Given the revelations of late, I don't think anyone's data is safe on any server, anywhere in the world as everyone is slurping like a starving man at a buffet.
Which makes me wonder... if all the "security" agencies world wide suddenly stopped slurping, would every companies' broadband bill suddenly drop? Would the 'Net be less congested?
You're seeing this as a Westerner but there's also history at play here. Historically, they had very strong Czars (for the most part) and the Communists were the same way when they took over. The leadership might be evil, but the mindset is "a strong leader protects us from the invaders". Putin plays into that mindset very well with this steely eyes and the horsey pics or wrestling with a bear. Democracy so far has been a wash as those preceding Putin were considered "weak old men".
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