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Comment Re:ridiculous (Score 1) 103

Please learn the difference between voter fraud and election fraud.
Voters need to be on the rolls regardless of whether or not they have photo ID.
That means, in clear text, that your cited example of "voter fraud" cannot be voter fraud - it can only be election fraud.
Something that voter ID will not help with.

Comment Re:Template (Score 1) 360

Came here to say something like this. Surprised that it is so low and so few votes compared to automation.

Our system goes a little further and we've had pretty good success with it: send them a link beforehand where they can enter the bug. Make the important fields required and don't accept bug reports any other way. Some of the users then just stop sending in bug reports and some fill things in with meaningless information, but generally the quality of the reports went way up.

Science

Submission + - Forty Years of P v NP

An anonymous reader writes: In the afternoon of May 4, 1971, in the Stouffer's Somerset Inn in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Steve Cook presented his STOC paper proving that Satisfiability is NP-complete and Tautology is NP-hard.

The theorems suggest that Tautology is a good candidate for an interesting set not in [P] and I feel it is worth spending considerable effort trying to prove this conjecture. Such a proof would be a major breakthrough in complexity theory.

And thus Cook formulated what was soon to be called the P versus NP problem. The rest is history.

Here's the 1971 STOC Program (there were 143 attendees)and what that sacred ground looks like today.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 274

Same problem here: I have a Neo Freerunner - all open software on open hardware.

Locks? What are those? Do you mean password protected? Yeah, I have that.

Open Source

Submission + - Richard Stallman: Cell phones are 'Stalin's dream' (networkworld.com)

jbrodkin writes: "Cell phones are "Stalin's dream," says free software pioneer Richard Stallman, who refuses to own one. "Cell phones are tools of Big Brother. I'm not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I'm not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop." Even the open source Android is dangerous because devices ship with proprietary executables, Stallman says in a wide-ranging interview on the state of the free software movement. Despite some progress, Stallman is still dismayed by "The existence and use of non-free software [which] is a social problem. It's an evil. And our aim is a world without that problem.""

Comment Re:vim? really? (Score 1) 592

This. I'm a hardcore emacs user - I wrote my own variant in TECO on a PDP-11 called "MINE" (unoriginally named after FINE - FINE Is Not Emacs) back around 1980, but I gave in and learned the basics of vi a few years back, simply because emacs isn't always available, and sometimes "echo whatever >> temp.sh" just won't cut it.
The Internet

Rushkoff Proposes We Fork the Internet 487

Shareable writes "Douglas Rushkoff: 'The moment the "net neutrality" debate began was the moment the net neutrality debate was lost. For once the fate of a network — its fairness, its rule set, its capacity for social or economic reformation — is in the hands of policymakers and the corporations funding them — that network loses its power to effect change. The mere fact that lawmakers and lobbyists now control the future of the net should be enough to turn us elsewhere.' And he goes on to suggest citizens fork the Internet & makes a call for ideas how to do that."
The Courts

USCG Sues Copyright Defense Lawyer 360

ESRB writes "The US Copyright Group has sued Graham Syfert, an attorney who created a packet of self-representation paperwork for individuals sued for P2P sharing of certain movies and moved to have sanctions placed against the defense attorney. Syfert sells these packets for $20, and the USCG claims the 19 individuals who have used it have cost them over $5000."
Government

DHS Seizes 75+ Domain Names 529

Many readers have sent in an update to yesterday's story about the Department of Homeland Security's seizure of torrent-finder.com, a domain they believe to be involved in online piracy. As it turns out, this was just one of dozens of websites that were targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "In announcing that operation, John T. Morton, the assistant secretary of ICE, and representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America called it a long-term effort against online piracy, and said that suspected criminals would be pursued anywhere in the world. 'American business is under assault from counterfeiters and pirates every day, seven days a week,' Mr. Morton said. 'Criminals are stealing American ideas and products and distributing them over the Internet.'" The TorrentFreak article we discussed yesterday has been updated with a list of the blocked sites.
Crime

Former Student Gets 30 Months For Political DDoS Attacks 486

wiredmikey writes "A former University of Akron student was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release for conducting denial of service attacks on the sites of several prominent conservative figures as well as infecting several systems with botnet software. Mitchell L. Frost, age 23, of Bellevue, Ohio admitted that between August 2006 and March 2007, he initiated denial of service attacks on web servers hosting the sites of political commentators, including Bill O'Reilly, Rudy Giuliani, Ann Coulter, and others."
Canada

CBC Bans Use of Creative Commons Music On Podcasts 148

An anonymous reader writes "The producers of the popular CBC radio show Spark have revealed (see the comments) that the public broadcaster has banned programs from using Creative Commons licenced music on podcasts. The decision is apparently the result of restrictions in collective agreements the CBC has with some talent agencies. In other words, groups are actively working to block the use of Creative Commons licenced alternatives in their contractual language. It is enormously problematic to learn that our public broadcaster is blocked from using music alternatives that the creators want to make readily available. The CBC obviously isn't required to use Creative Commons licenced music, but this highlights an instance where at least one of its programs wants to use it and groups that purport to support artists' right to choose the rights associated with their work is trying to stop them from doing so."
Censorship

MPAA Asks If ACTA Can Be Used To Block Wikileaks 322

An anonymous reader writes "With the entertainment industry already getting laws to block certain sites, it appears they're interested in expanding that even further. The latest is that at a meeting with ACTA negotiators in Mexico, an MPAA representative apparently asked if ACTA rules could be used to force ISPs to block 'dangerous sites' like Wikileaks. It makes you wonder why the MPAA wants to censor Wikileaks (and why it wants to use ACTA to do so). But, the guess is that if it can use Wikileaks as a proxy for including rules to block websites, how long will it be until other 'dangerous' sites, such as Torrent search engines, are included." Note: TechDirt typically has insightful commentary, but make of the original (Spanish) twiiter message what you will.

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