Comment Re:Seems consistent with every issue (Score 1) 334
E.g. with "death panels"?
Comment What would you gain? (Score 1) 334
I don't get your point. Confusing legal language does not get more usefull or logical when you put them in SVN.
Of cource: SVN - or probably another solution better suited for the task - could help to track changes over time - but this not the problem of the health care reform bills, is it?
Comment Please without Paypal (Score 1) 198
XKCD has already a store with some very neat items. But unfortunately you have to become a PayPal costumer to get these. Very unfortunate.
Submission + - Hackers get serial numbers of new U.S. passports
schwit1 writes: Fox News has an AP story on a SF Hacker driving around and needing as little as 20 minutes to be successful in acquiring a passport number.
Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security has been promoting broad use of RFID even though its own advisory committee on data integrity and privacy warned that radio-tagged IDs have the potential to allow "widespread surveillance of individuals" without their knowledge or consent.
In its 2006 draft report, the committee concluded that RFID "increases risks to personal privacy and security, with no commensurate benefit for performance or national security," and recommended that "RFID be disfavored for identifying and tracking human beings.
Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security has been promoting broad use of RFID even though its own advisory committee on data integrity and privacy warned that radio-tagged IDs have the potential to allow "widespread surveillance of individuals" without their knowledge or consent.
In its 2006 draft report, the committee concluded that RFID "increases risks to personal privacy and security, with no commensurate benefit for performance or national security," and recommended that "RFID be disfavored for identifying and tracking human beings.
Comment Prior art! (Score 1) 295
The Big One sponsored by mysterious billionaires?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090264/
Submission + - The Dawning of Internet Censorship in Germany (netzpolitik.org) 2
tmk writes: "Germany is on the verge of censoring its Internet. On Thursday the German parliament Bundestag will adopt a law to block Internet sites in order to fight child pornography. In the last months the German net community tried to stop the new law, spreaded the word from Twitter to the mainstream media that the new law won't help against child abuse. The netizens started the biggest parlamentary petition in Germany which was supported by 130000 citizens and fought with wikis and internet memes against the established political structures. Activists even helped to remove over 60 websites containing child pornography in 12 hours — proving that internet blocking is an ineffective method to fight child pornography. But the net community didn't succeed at last. The German Federal Police will soon begin to distribute a blacklist to German providers."
Comment capture and copy (Score 1) 168
A system that could capture the way humans interact with forms algorithmically could eventually relieve humans of the need to prove anything altogether.'
This system could also reproduce human interactions. So it's only time until this behavourial approach stops working.
BTW: I don't want slashdot to check how I scroll the page, nor is my typing and retyping business of anybody but me. Imagine you can't comment anywhere because you block Google Analytics.
Comment BT users: Is it really blocked? (Score 1) 360
False accusations of censorship have increased lately - as censorship itself. I'm a pretty suspicious guy, so I feel obliged to ask:
Can anybody here confirm the story? What about the other four providers that are mentioned on the IWF site?
Comment Re:Update: Why the contract was terminated (Score 1) 70
It would make a lot of sense if your plan was to trick him in to failing to renew his registration so that you could terminate his domain.
This is not what happened. Reppe still owns the domain. He has only to find a new provider.
Comment Re:Update: Why the contract was terminated (Score 1) 70
How exactly is "fucking with the system" different from "making a point"?
Comment Re:Update: Why the contract was terminated (Score 3, Interesting) 70
I guess he just misinterpreted the phone conversation. It wouldn't make much sense to put the termination in writing and say something else. It makes much sense that the hosting company assured him that he had three months time to transfer his domains.
Comment Update: Why the contract was terminated (Score 5, Informative) 70
Wikileaks has published a new press release about the alleged censorship. After I read the details I fully understand why the contract had been terminated.
In December Reppe tried to transfer bnd.de - the domain of the federal intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst - to his account. To do that he had to assure that he was the rightful owner of bnd.de. The provider stopped the transition and terminated the contract with Reppe with 3 months notice.
Comment It's the wrong question (Score 2, Insightful) 543
Of course it is legal to sell OpenOffice - why shouldn't it be? You can bundle it with Templates, you can add a better manual, you can compile an version for a new OS...
But it is illegal to trick users to "buy". It's not an license issue, it's one of consumer protection or criminal prosecution.
Comment Re:example: The colbert Report (Score 1) 664
Sorry, but you obviously have lost perspective what this discussion was about.
Comment Re:example: The colbert Report (Score 1) 664
To cut this discussion short: Apple has no non-proprietary agenda. You believe they don't support Flash because Flash is bad, I believe Flash is an competitor for iTunes store.
