secondhand_Buddah - Slashdot User

Comment Intelligence and Consciousness (Score 1) 455

by secondhand_Buddah on Monday November 24, 2014 @04:39AM (#48447535) Attached to: Alva Noe: Don't Worry About the Singularity, We Can't Even Copy an Amoeba

There is a distinct difference between Intelligence and Consciousness.
I have no doubt that the AI we are building will improve dramatically, even to the point where it will far exceed human intelligence. But it is unlikely that the intelligent machines to ever be sentient.

Comment Re:Legal Loophole (Score 1) 95

by secondhand_Buddah on Thursday October 30, 2014 @09:16AM (#48268507) Attached to: Secret Policy Allows GCHQ Bulk Access To NSA Data

Well, its a classic chicken and the egg situation. If the measures were in place, Al Quaeda would have used different channels, like I presume they do now.

Comment Legal Loophole (Score 2) 95

by secondhand_Buddah on Thursday October 30, 2014 @07:16AM (#48267997) Attached to: Secret Policy Allows GCHQ Bulk Access To NSA Data

What this effectively does is create a legal loophole through which the US intelligence agencies can request data from the GCHQ, on US citizens thereby bypassing surveiling citizens directly.

Comment Re:Shallow people will be shallow (Score 1) 161

by secondhand_Buddah on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @04:41AM (#47564107) Attached to: OKCupid Experiments on Users Too

The norm shifts over time. Our perception of ugly is very different to the ugly of 500 years ago.

Comment Re:Shallow people will be shallow (Score 1) 161

by secondhand_Buddah on Tuesday July 29, 2014 @09:33AM (#47556655) Attached to: OKCupid Experiments on Users Too

People who are perceived to be attractive have an evolutionary advantage, because people are attracted to them
So for your genes to survive, it is better that you find an attractive mate.
Over time the traits we find unattractive will disappear from the gene pool.

Comment Re:Also... (Score 1) 165

by secondhand_Buddah on Tuesday June 10, 2014 @08:05AM (#47201717) Attached to: Recommendations For Classic Superhero Comic Collections?

Seeing as it is gospel, I would recommend clay tablets.

Comment Re:XBMC ftw (Score 1) 420

by secondhand_Buddah on Wednesday January 15, 2014 @07:57AM (#45963607) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Suggestions For a Simple Media Server?

XMBC also functions as a DNLA server when it is running

Comment Re:So now... (Score 1) 259

by secondhand_Buddah on Monday January 06, 2014 @05:40AM (#45876653) Attached to: University Developing Technology To Vote On Your Tablet, Smartphone

The whole issue here is to be able to determine whether your vote was actually counted. A hashing schema could be used to create an anonymous identifier per vote cast so that we could have an open and safe voting system

Comment Re:So now... (Score 1) 259

by secondhand_Buddah on Monday January 06, 2014 @05:18AM (#45876577) Attached to: University Developing Technology To Vote On Your Tablet, Smartphone

Publically accountable voting can work, especially if voting is extended to issues too.

Comment Re:Double question (Score 2) 363

by secondhand_Buddah on Saturday January 04, 2014 @03:14PM (#45866401) Attached to: Senator Bernie Sanders Asks NSA If Agency Is Spying On Congress

Yes I agree with this. This may be how the NSA is legally circumventing the system. They get the GCHQ to spy on the US Citizens, while the NSA spies on everyone else on earth. This may very well be why the secret courts keep on saying the system is legal.

Comment Re:simple (Score 2) 381

by secondhand_Buddah on Tuesday July 09, 2013 @04:38AM (#44223149) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Preventing Snowden-Style Security Breaches?

You are 100% correct. Everything Hitler and his regime did was legal - pretty much like everything the US government is doing is legal.

Comment Idiocracy dawns (Score 1) 123

by secondhand_Buddah on Friday July 05, 2013 @03:58AM (#44192963) Attached to: British Airways Set To Bring Luggage Tags Into the 21st Century

Great!! So I will now be able to monitor my bags being jetted off to some exotic destination in real-time, while I go in the opposite direction. Isn't technology wonderful?

Comment I'm glad the internet lifted the veil (Score 5, Insightful) 314

by secondhand_Buddah on Tuesday July 02, 2013 @05:19AM (#44163241) Attached to: Beware the Internet

I think the author longs for the bygone era when journalists were the primary source of how the majority of people shaped our personal views of the world. I for one, am glad that the veil has been lifted.

Comment Re: Illegal power without Constitutional authority (Score 3, Insightful) 180

by secondhand_Buddah on Monday July 01, 2013 @05:59AM (#44152039) Attached to: WA Post Publishes 4 More Slides On Data Collection From Google, Et Al

How long before we find out that CAs are part of the whole spying industry also?

There is very high likelihood that they are . Verisign was founded by a group of ex CIA/FBI directors back in the 90's, who resigned to start Verisign. This happened after the Clipper chip program got canned. (The US government wanted to build a legal backdoor into every computer running the Clipper cryptographic system.)

Its the same reason that they bought Thawte from Mark Shuttleworth for about a $1 billion dollars. He controlled a significant amount of HTTPS encryopted HTTPS traffic via his start-up.

I suspect that Most HTTPS traffic can be decrypted on the fly by the US spy organisations.

Comment NSA - Free backup services available now. (Score 1) 153

by secondhand_Buddah on Tuesday June 25, 2013 @03:34AM (#44098627) Attached to: Australian Government Rejects Data Retention Law After Report

Why store data when the Americans are already storing it for you?

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