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Comment Re:Another bad omen for privacy and security (Score 1) 309

There's not much point in arguing with you because you've shown that you're both too stupid to understand the point and too stubborn to actually think for 30 seconds before pushing your own tired nonsensical point.

But here's the thing in a very basic, simple, easy to understand explanation: End-to-end encryption doesn't suddenly become useless because you've trusted a 3rd party with the encryption keys. When you trust a 3rd party, then the encryption remains as strong as that 3rd party is trustworthy.

This is especially important to know, since we're already trusting other 3rd parties as part of the security chain. If I don't trust GPG or anyone auditing their code, then I can't trust the security of things encrypted with GPG, regardless of who has the keys.

Regardless, encrypting individual messages rather than relying solely on SSL during transmission does add security against various kinds of attacks and breaches. I could give examples, but do you want them? Would examples help, or are you, as I suspect, simply being difficult because you're an asshole who can't admit to being wrong?

Comment Re: Oh dear me, so frightening. (Score 3, Insightful) 533

> Women are already empowered enough.

In the USA, it's gotten profoundly better in my lifetime, but even here it is hardly complete.

Empowering women also leads to lower birth rates and reduces poverty profoundly. One of the biggest reasons that ISIS, al Quaeda, and other fundamentalist groups grow is that they offer poor, disenfranchised people, especially unemployed young men. It's a vicious cycle of violence and poverty, and it _cannot break_ without control of birth rates, becuase there is _no work_ for these young men. Their only hope of prosperity, whether physical or spiritual, becomes the gang and tribal groups because if they do not join, the gangs and fanatics will _take_ their money, their turf, and eventually their lives.

Comment Re:Last straw? (Score 1) 533

Before we try to defeat them, maybe we should think about what will replace them. The reason we have ISIS is because we defeated Saddam Hussein without thinking much about what would come next. The rationale at the time was that whatever replaced him couldn't possibly be worse. Well, that was wrong.

Depends on your perspective. From a national security standpoint, if you really thought Saddam Hussein was going to be unleashing terrible modern weaponry, I would say job well-done. ISIS can probably keep that region from developing nuclear weapons any time in the next thousand years.

But from a humanitarian standpoint, what is worse than the prevalent rape, torture, murder, forced conversion, and the kind of oppression that outlaws any opposing thought? The oppressive leaders in the region such as Saddam Hussein have deserved credit for holding back the tide of lawless extremism, but what evil is it that ISIS could be credited with standing in the way of? Being as evil as possible is pretty much their objective. Saddam tried to conceal his atrocities. They literally publish theirs in their newsletters.

Comment Re:It takes a scandal to fix this kind of thing IM (Score 1) 230

He apparently leaked information about 140,000 accounts. His sentence was vacated and conviction reversed on appeal because the appeals judge felt he should have been tried in his home state.

It's too bad this judge was not available for the "Amateur Action" computer porn case in 1996 (http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/mchon/web/Cases/thomas.html).

Comment Re:Notify CTO, CFO & CEO offices (Score 1) 230

The "lighting a fire under the IT staff" too often results in the manager of IT having meetings, submitting checklists and expense reports, and doing _nothing_ to address the actual issue. Too often it's not a specific line of code, which can be corrected, but poor practices and attitudes about what security can and should be applied to projects.

Comment Color Illusion (Score 2) 420

The XKCD plot just makes me see gold and white at different levels of brightness. But I did find this color illusion featuring yellow and blue. The dogs are actually the same color, which you see if you look at them individually through a small aperture
http://i.imgur.com/sh5NwCK.jpg

Make it pretty obvious that at some point your brain switches from wanting to see blue to wanting to see yellow based on the color context. It would appear some of us are slightly different in where transitions like that occur.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Web Dev on the Mac 1

I've been working on a little side project. I would like to have an app where people can read updates that I send out. It seemed like a fun way to learn more about programming mobile apps and it's something I could actually use if I can get it to a decent state.

I'm keeping it simple. I decided the app would just be an rss feed reader. And that meant I need a feed. I want it to be very specific to my app so I decided the way to go would be to just create my own back end for cre

Comment Re:Just damn (Score 1) 411

Mark Twain supposedly said, "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it dozens of times!" (Implying that even in the late 19th century, there was a reason to want to quit smoking).

Comment Re:Just damn (Score 2) 411

Oh, I know. He was well rewarded for playing Spock. I think we all knew this was coming for a while; he had largely retired from public appearances, and then the reports a few days ago that he had been admitted to the hospital.

I plan on celebrating his life and his unique and significant contributions by watching a collection of my favorite ST:TOS episodes;

- Amok Time (who doesn't want to watch horny Vulcans fight to the death)
- City On The Edge Of Forever (more a Kirk episode, but Spock plays a pretty damned important role)
- Doomsday Machine (great scene where Spock removes Decker from command)
- Mirror, Mirror(evil Spock is just so fucking cool, and who doesn't enjoy watching Chekhov writhe in pain)
- A Taste of Armageddon (great episode that shows how Star Trek could go after tough issues in novel ways, and also the first real introduction to Vulcan mind powers)
- The Tholian Web (has a great scene between Spock and McCoy)
- And I'll top it off with The Wrath of Khan

Comment Re:Good move (Score 1) 210

The only kudos I'll give to Dell is that they still ship a clean Windows install DVD and a driver disk. Pretty much the first thing I do after I've made sure a new computer starts up is to immediately wipe out the partitions and install clean from disk.

Comment Re:Hum (Score 1) 411

I think, once he had come to terms with the good and the bad of playing an iconic and culturally significant character, he was willing to accept that Spock had been a positive influence on a lot of people. In the later years he showed a good deal of pride, and really he and other members of the cast were quite influential in a very positive way.

And, from the perspective of the Star Trek franchise, I think Nimoy has to be given a lot of credit. His portrayal of Spock made him probably the most popular actor of the cast (Bill Shatner has talked in the past of how he got a bit jealous that the bulk of fan mail during the TOS run usually came for Nimoy).

While I don't think much of the reboots, I think there's a reason that Abrams got Nimoy to reprise the role, and showed little interest in Shatner reprising Kirk. Spock is a touchstone character, and if you're going to try to bring some credibility to your reboot, you're going to want to pick that kind of a character for the job.

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