Comment Re:There needs to be a cyber law class (Score 1) 633
It was a website in French when it was still up
It was a website in French when it was still up
Well both ideas are speculation on our part, but I think the kid not telling the news the whole story is still more likely than 14 people failed to take their responsibilities seriously because they are overworked. Would you vote to expel someone based on the kind of evidence you are imagining?
If you are right, I find it very sad that these individuals were given the power of expulsion and did not treat that power with respect.
Also I don't see how it is in the company's interest to have him expelled when they already had an NDA. In order to fault the company and the college, we have to presume too many facts. Now they are overworked, coerced, irresponsible, etc etc. Occam's Razor does not like this theory
From NicBenjamin's cbc link
Dawson College spokeswoman Donna Varrica sent CBC a statement saying the college stands by its original decision to expel Al-Khabaz.
Varrica clarified the process that leads to expulsion. She said the process includes a step in which a student is issued an advisory to cease and desist the activities for which he or she is being sanctioned.
"When this directive is contravened by the student by engaging in additional activities of the same sort, the College has no recourse but to take appropriate measures to sanction the student," Varrica stated.
Apparently the school told him not to do this and he persisted? Also they stand by the decision and the software company offered him a scholarship and part time job now that the new broke.
So what's really going on here? I know everyone wants to root for the underdog, but perhaps the kid is just not telling the whole truth.
Ideally a professor on a committee with expulsion power is tenured. (No idea if that is true here)
However, it sounds like you think it's more likely that 14 people were coerced than a 20 year old would omit part of his story. Have you found large scale coercion more common than lies of omission?
So....deceived rather than conspired? I find this also difficult to believe. The professors are (presumably) experts in computer science and had this kid's entire future in their hands. Do you think they would be easily duped?
I wouldn't blame the kid for curiosity either. But I wouldn't vote to kick a kid out of school without compelling evidence of intent *beyond* curiosity (in this case).
So I have a hard time imagining how they could skew evidence so well as to convince so many professors to take this severe an action. Again though, it's hard to imagine since we don't have the logs, nor do we have info on the original vulnerability. What we do have though, is 14 professors who felt there was sufficient evidence to expel him.
Care to hazard another guess?
Not that I dispute your assertion of corporations, however the NDA was the corporate threat, getting him expelled would be a dangerous PR move. And none of it is unique to the USA.
14 out of 15 professors choose to expel this student
Indeed this is the part I find the most telling that there is more to the story. Would all these professors really have conspired to avoid embarrassment for the college? Or, is there something these professors knew that isn't in TFA?
He found a flaw, waited two days, and then proceeded to use a general purpose tool. While this is most likely naivety on his part, it could also be something else we're not aware of.
But we don't have the logs, nor do we have info on the original vulnerability. If I were a professor given the info in TFA, I would not have expelled him. And that is what doesn't add up. If a professor had evidence that his intent was more than to just verify a fix, then the 14/15 vote begins to make much more sense.
That made him sign the NDA
If I were Google, I'd prefer to pull the plug on all of France rather than agreeing to push the first rock which would be almost certain to start a landslide that even I wouldn't survive...
I was wondering this as well. I would imagine the ISP would reverse course in a matter of nanoseconds if their users started seeing a page like
"Your ISP has blocked Google from providing you Gmail. They are demanding we pay for your use of the internet, something which you already pay for. Here's their contact info:...."
It always strikes me as funny too since Cable is the other way around. I'm pretty sure Cable providers pay television stations. And even if a station doesn't have enough clout there is a law (in the US) they can use called "must carry" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must-carry
I'm surprised this analogy isn't used much.
Is it? Or is this article an attempt to paint and shame the prosecutors as privileged? I suspect it's the latter.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit and dropped the charges against him. They offer some articles to individuals for free, and now have opened more articles via the Alumni Access program. What they do isn't evil. Rather, they could do more, provide more access. So why are we sitting debating about what access the prosecutors had to JSTOR? It's irrelevant to the larger conversation.
The discussion we should be having:
1) Should all scientific studies be public domain?
2) If so, how should access be provided? Who pays to maintain upkeep?
3) Should all publicly funded science be made public? (probably and obvious yes here)
4) If so, how should access be provided? Who pays to maintain upkeep?
I'd like to think Scwartz's goal was bigger than these small-minded, egotistical prosecutors. Lets talk about how we can open up the data, not how to engage in a witch hunt. Prosecutorial overreach, to me, is a separate conversation.
Indeed, this is hate mongering. JSTOR dropped the charges and is putting out an olive branch (granted it's a tiny one). Now if this were about pushing publicly funded articles and papers to the Library of Congress or otherwise opening that up to the public, then that is a discussion worth having. Trying to paint the prosecutors as part of a privileged "elite" evil is unproductive. The issue is getting the public access to public information, not the perceived hypocrisy of who currently has access.
The actual original article (Xinhua via Google translate)
The "Security researchers": Jinshan networks / Kingsoft (DuBa)
There's a difference between curated and walled.
However it's sad that it took a suicide for them to examine their role here. For a college that pioneered OpenCourseWare, I never understood why they stood idly by.
I'm pretty sure you could hard-wire safety mechanisms that prevented this.
Similar concept here: http://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/open-source-android-thermostat/#more-87901
A post by the creator in his forums:
As a few people have pointed out, there is some risk that your heater may get stuck in the on state or off state if the app or your phone was to lock up. I've added a few safeguards against this already in the code and am going to add a few more, but I'd like to also find an all mechanical solution to this to ensure the thermostat fails safely if it does fail.
The best solution I know of is to use three bimetal switches to:
Break the circuit on the heater to turn it off if the temperature gets above 100F
Connect the circuit to turn on the heater if the temperature gets below 45F
Connect the circuit to turn on the air conditioner if the temperature gets above 100F
The problem is most of the major manufacturers of these switches do not sell directly to the public. You have to place bulk orders. The few I have found such as these ( 1, 2, 3) are large, heavy, overkill and somewhat expensive. It would be hard to fit three of these in the case, and more may be needed when multi-stage support is added.
There are several cheap thermal fuses, but these only appear to be available for higher temperature ranges. The only reasonable solution I have been able to find so far are these switches from Amico. (104F NC, 104F NO). The only problem with these is they are Chinese made and have not been UL certified. I think an uncertified mechanical fail safe is a whole lot better than no mechanical fail safe at all, so unless someone knows of a better option I plan on including these in the next design. I really hope someone can provide a better option though.
Do any of your APs act as repeaters? I tried this but was having some trouble with devices on the network being able to see each other among other bizarre errors.
Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.
