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Comment Re:Additional background (Score 2) 293

A few things are worth noting about the original case. Marriott agreed in a plea deal to have improperly used "containment features" of FCC-licensed equipment to block Wi-Fi hotspots, and this was performed in conference facilities, not the hotel. https://www.fcc.gov/document/m...: "Marriott Hotel Services, Inc., will pay $600,000 to resolve a Federal Communications Commission investigation into whether Marriott intentionally interfered with and disabled Wi-Fi networks established by consumers in the conference facilities of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, in violation of Section 333 of the Communications Act. The FCC Enforcement Bureau’s investigation revealed that Marriott employees had used containment features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system at the Gaylord Opryland to prevent individuals from connecting to the Internet via their own personal Wi-Fi networks, while at the same time charging consumers, small businesses, and exhibitors as much as $1,000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network."

"containment features"??? You mean "illegal jammers", don't you, Marriott? Because, unless the FCC has drastically changed the rules, intentional jamming of legal signals is absolutely illegal, no matter what the reason, unless of course, they have prior FCC authorization. Which I highly doubt. Sauce for the goose, etc...

Comment "The theory is that 'something' should be done" (Score 2) 216

Politicians aren't the right people to be handling this. You can legislate all the laws you want, but they don't fix the problem. It's illegal to burgle houses, but it happens all the time. Sony got burgled. Better luck next time. Buy better locks, build a more secure IT infrastructure, and be thankful that nobody died. Nobody even lost real money, as I read it, except, of course, for the costs of the cleanup.

Although the thought of all those Sony employees filling out paper forms with typewriters is kinda humorous...

Comment Oh, shut up, for God's sake. (Score 1) 183

I'm tired of politicians beating the {jihadi|pedo|copyright} drum. You can use a pipe wrench to provide clean water or you can beat someone to death withit, but that's no reason to outlaw pipe wrenches.
You can also use telephones to arrange contract killings. Let's ban them.
On second thought, maybe we could use our phones and internet servers to get rid of annoying politicians.

Comment from the Institute of the Blindingly Obvious (Score 4, Insightful) 454

"Many in the tech industry are using it for cheaper, indentured labor..."

Gee, you think?
Seriously, as a working engineer, the fact that this hasn't been emphasised this has annoyed me for years. There is no shortage of bright, hard working engineering talent in the US, and the our schools are (and have been for years) capable of turning out as many well-educated engineering graduates as the industry requires. It's just that they want to make enough money to live a good life (and pay back the cost of their education). Graduates from the Farkistan Institue of Technology are *so* much cheaper. And they don't ask for raises or threaten to change jobs...because they would get sent home.

Do you seriously believe that a foreign H1B with an MS, working for $35k is equivalent to a US graduate?

Comment Re: Marked Paper Ballots FTW (Score 1) 388

From what I understand, the (Diebold, etc) are basically special-purpose embedded PCs or tablets. Now try this: take your PC, tablet, whatever, and put it in your basement for 2 years, then pull it out and try powering it up. Honestly, I'm surprised *any* of them work. I'm sure they're stored in better locations than my basement (at least, I hope they are), but even with proper storage, electronics, especially cheap electronics, don't age well. Batteries have basically a 4-year lifetime, whether or not you use them.

Paper ballots, machine and human readable. Spend some money for a few ballot counter boxes, instead of four to ten times that number of voting machines. You get automatic counting, machine readable totals and the indisputable, original, individual voter-marked paper ballots, which should always be the final authority of votes cast.

Technology alone doesn't solve problems. *Intelligent use* of technology can.

Comment Re:Refreshing (Score 1) 669

(you should NOT immediately kill all witches, homosexuals, and people who don't believe the same as us, even though the book says the Lord clearly instructed you to do this).

Sometimes god is delivering instructions. Sometimes someone is claiming that god delivered instructions. The bible is unclear as to which the author felt was the case in each situation, probably not least because of the centuries of translation, adaptation, and manipulation. Some of those apparent contradictions probably aren't supposed to be contradictions at all, but they are now.

This is going to come as a shock to those who believe that "God said it. It's in the Boble. I believe it. End of discussion."

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