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Comment Re:Oh? (Score 1) 267

It would seem so on the face of it, but you're forgetting how law is interpreted.

The Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is and isn't constitutional. If a lower court rules one way and the Supreme Court overturns the ruling due to constitutionality issues, neither the lower court nor the parties involved are necessarily guilty of a crime. They are simply bound to the ruling of the Supreme Court.

For instance, if the police search your home without a warrant they aren't necessarily guilty of a crime despite the search being illegal. Their actions are simply deemed unconstitutional and any evidence gathered is inadmissible in court.

Comment Re:Oh? (Score 1) 267

It would seem so on the face of it, but you're forgetting how law is interpreted. The Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is and isn't constitutional. If a lower court rules one way and the Supreme Court overturns the ruling due to constitutionality issues, neither the lower court nor the parties involved are necessarily guilty of a crime. They are simply bound to the ruling of the Supreme Court. Constitutionality is not always a perfect black and white issue.

Comment Re:Super unique. (Score 1) 138

Actually, there is no reason for alcohol to be sold by volume other than that it usually is. I've seen a handful of smaller brewers and imports that sell by weight.

from http://beeradvocate.com/articles/518:

"To convert ABW to ABV, simply multiply the ABW by 1.25. So a 7 percent ABW beer would be a 9 percent ABV beer. If for some reason you want to convert from ABV to ABW, multiply the ABV percent by 0.8"
Security

Submission + - Vodafone fails to secure voicemail, twice (nos.nl)

HavanaF writes: "Vodafone made a mess in The Netherlands by failing twice, in two days, to secure its customers' voicemail system. Customers include almost all Dutch politicians and the entire government, as Vodafone is the governments' official telco provider.

On Wednesday a TV program aired private voicemails of the Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs and other officials. Anyone could access voicemails of any Vodafone client that had not changed a default access code, set to '3333' by Vodafone in January, maybe earlier, without informing its customers. Vodafone said immediate steps had been taken AND "its the responsibility of the customer to change the code" AND it would now only provide remote access via codes that had been changed by the customer, adding "it has been possible for only a few months to use the default access code".

Then, Thursday, a day later, a Dutch news program airs voicemails to Geert Wilders and the same minister of Foreign Affairs, and others. Dutch security company FoxIT demonstrated it could easily access anyones Vodafone voicemail using Spoofcard, a dubious call ID spoofing service. According to FoxIT, only Vodafone could be spoofed to grant access to voicemail, saying other operators seemed secure.

In response on TV and in a press release Vodafone tries to spin its total failure as "a battle with cybercrime via identity theft". Is that not just another lie by Vodafone?

Check the security of Vodafone voicemail in your country."

Space

Submission + - Student Built Spacecraft Separate and Communicate (spaceref.com)

BJ_Covert_Action writes: "Some students from the Cockrell School of Engineering in Austin, Texas have built, developed, launched, and operated two historical satellites. The FASTRAC satellites make up the first small-scale satellite system which is composed of two separate spacecraft that can communicate to each other. On March 22, the single FASTRAC satellite successfully separated into two smaller spacecraft that are currently operating and communicating with each other. While separation and communication has occurred between paired satellites before, this is the first time it has been done with such a small platform (the FASTRAC spacecraft weigh approximately 60 lbs.).

Furthermore, this is the first time a student designed and built space system has been comprised of two separate spacecraft that can interact with each other. One of the most impressive things about this mission is that it was done incredibly cheap at $250,000, which is far below the costs associated with traditional spacecraft."

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