Presumably, such a task would require access to DMV computer systems

Why? Who the hell would bother hacking the server when they have physical access to the one part of the system that matters, the plate itself?


Plus, the perp compounds their crime by hacking into a computer system without authorization

Y'know, this point alone worries me the most. I can't think of any compelling legal argument against it, yet it sets a bad precedent about ownership and our already-thin right-to-modify/repair items you pay for and of which you have physical possession.

"Yeah, a rock hit my plate. I can fix it with a $20 replacement screen I install myself"
"Sorry, felony tampering with official gear, buddy! Pay $250 for a new DMV-issued plate, or go to jail!"

Clearly, California must have the single best quality roads in the entire world.

In the Northeast US, come spring, your license plate looks like a sand-blasted salt-shaker. These no doubt fairly expensive (large LCD screen and cell enabled?) license plates would last less than a year.

But hey, don't let that pesky ol' reality get in the way of yet another way for Uncle Sam to track our every move!

And you misspeled CanHasDIY.

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You mispelled sarcastic.

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Guess what is the superposition of "quantum" and "hacker"?

This?

Awesome! Time to write a quantum Bitcoin miner - Let's see if we can waste CPU cycles by the universe itself! ;)

Wow. I hope you realize your version goes a lot further than the court verdict.

That version includes all the evidence the judge suppressed and the prosecution actively tampered with, found on Trayvon's phone, email, and Facebook pages.

That's a long way from determining that Martin, initiated the confrontation, tried to kill Zimmerman, shoplifted (first I heard of this), or was going to smoke drugs that evening (irrelevant even if true).

In the absence of knowing Trayvon's "real" intent, the trial amounted to little more than establishing his general character as either the saint the media painted him as, or just-onother-random-thug... Or more realistically, somewhere in between (decent kid doing stupid shit that got him killed). So yes, it does have relevance.

That is configurable, and typically ranges between about a half second and ten seconds. In fact I've been seeing about ten seconds between key-frames in some of the movies on my cable TV. It's visible as a faint fog that creeps up in very dark scenes, and abruptly vanishes to black at the next key-frame. The sudden jump is distracting, but it's even more distracting consciously realizing I'm "watching a CODEC" rather than "watching a movie. Chuckle.

Yeah, my description was a little sloppy.

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Are you listening?

What a silly question! Of course they listen! Why, we have a whole intelligence agency with no legitimate purpose other than to listen in on...

Oh, you didn't mean "illegally spy on", you meant "take your bosses seriously". Sorry, simple mistake.

The part where it's Google/Facebook/Whomever that decides whether an account is your and open, not the user.

And the part where this entire discussion relates to people who take positive action to protect their privacy?

How do you propose Google/Facebook/Whomever recognize that "zork98' has the same owner as "bin55go"? Will they go by my fake DOB? As much of my fake mailing address as they require to make an account? My throwaway email address I used to sign up? My randomized user agent? Hell, if you read a few of my posts closely, ignoring the actual content, you'll notice I even affect a fake writing style for accounts to which I actually post often (such as Slashdot).

Okay, technically they have my IP address - Which (in the case of accounts I access from work) could include "only" a few hundred people. And ones I access from the free WiFi at Starbucks in the morning... Well that narrows it down to one of millions.

And therein we have the ultimate irony of policies designed to make you easier to track - Most of them only apply to those dumb enough to make themselves easy to track in the first place.

that's why facebook is a big deal, since they're the only one's who have enough somewhat reliable data to actually sell adverts targeted at 20-35 year old people living in country X

My pet iguana's profile would like to disagree with you. Sure, "they" know they have a 20-35YO (in people years) male that studies insects, likes warm weather, and dislikes Tennessee Williams... But I'd like to see them sell something to him.

No. The New Zealand bill was a scam, and all the news coverage screwed up and fell for the scam. The main body of the bill directly stated that software was not patentenable, but Supplementary Order Paper No 237 provided "clarification" that only software-as-such was not patentable, and further "clarified" that software-as-such ONLY included patent claims which merely added on-a-computer to something old. In legalese, they excluded patent claims who's sole contribution was that it was a program.

This means the bill actually MANDATED pure software patents, so long as the patent claim described some new math or something.

For example the classic pure-software patent catastrophe was the GIF patent... that patent claimed some new mathematics for converting one series of numbers (representing a picture) into a shorter series of numbers (a GIF compressed picture). The patent described (contributed) new mathematics, therefore the it's patentable. The RSA public-key crypto software patent is also still patentable, it claims new math for encrypting stuff. All audio and video codec patents, all patentable in New Zealand.

The only patents they excluded was the stupidest level stuff like "fill out your tax form exactly the same way you filled it out last year, but I want a patent on doing it with software".

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It's not even that. The current version is basically just a glorified slideshow viewer.

The way most video codecs work is they start by storing a full picture once every second or two. These are called key-frames, or intra-frames. The frames in between key-frames are called inter-frames, and this is where 90+% of the real work of a codec happens. These frames are stored as a short description of how the current frame is different than the last key-frame. Instead of storing the full picture you just describe what parts of the picture are moving, or if part of the picture is getting brighter or darker, or if colors are shifting.

It's essentially a slideshow viewer, showing something akin to a series of JPEG pictures. Basically the entire CODEC is missing, the part that compresses and decompresses all the video frames in between.

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What marketers know about me:
He's running AdBlock.

What marketers think they know:
Everyone wants to see relevant ads.
He's running AdBlock because he's annoyed that the ads he's been seeing aren't relevant enough.

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And in other news, Google has rolled out their monthly gratuitous GMail revamp. And no one even noticed, because we've all gotten tired of hunting down the "please give me back the old interface" checkbox somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of the user options pages.

Ah well, at least Slashdot limits its retarded UI crippling and eye-bleed-inducing changes to twice a decade. Hmm, probably due any day now...