I was going to say its a slippery path we are walking here, but the article uses that analogy.
I can just see the next dump of legistaion: (give each one less time than the last to implement, starting at two or three years)
legislation will be passed such that certain 'crimes' can be prosecuted retrospectively. these people being prosecuted are bad, anyways. Dont worry about it, its for your own good anyway.
it will be illegal to use/borrow someone elses phone. (though mr haneef could be battling this one currently)
phones are now complsory, they will also be mandated to support functionality akin to 'national id cards'
you must now carry your phone with you at all times, in an operational state.
you now live in a police state, and are safe. Do not worry about anything. thanks for playing!
(prologue) thought crimes and stuff are now policed retrospectively too. sucks to be you. I hope you didnt think any anti-establishment thoughts whilst reading this.
--dangeresque 'nostradamus' ramone
This is easily the best Bruce Schneier article I've ever read and it isn't actually about computers:
It does however, make you wonder. a lot. (the site does have some interesting stuff from time to time)
I was going to go into a big speil as to our government prohibiting our cricket team from touring zimbabwe, and its not their business to say who can and cant do something, especially in another country. I didnt get to read the paper on sunday so i just saw the headline- but after doing a bit of reading teh interwebs i shall not be angry at mr government today. Turns out its not a 'its in your best interests to not go so i'll ban you' kinda thing, but more like they didnt want to go anyway, and were facing a $2.4M fine. The fact that the government prohibited them from going gets them through a loophole, and (as it turns out) get to be a prick to mugabe at the same time. (who allegedly is a arch-bastard, but i cbf doing more reading now).
So do the reading kiddies before passing opinion. I should linkify stuff but i cbf that too, credibilty be damned.
And with attiudes like this, relations are going to remain the same for quite some years
Okay I am starting to take over this page from danger, in the same was that America hasn't taken over Iraq. What I have to put forward today is the latest news that the Austrlaian Defence Force is not fufilling their recruitment numbers and are going to implement a "try before you buy" programme for new recruits. Now, personally I am a university graduate, and I have the choice between being paid $34k a year and getting yelled abuse by anal retentive sergents with infearority complex's and then getting sent to some stinking hot desert and getting shot at, or getting paid $55k a year and not having to deal with those things. It doesn't come as any suprise to me that people dont want to join an organisation where you get sent to the arsehole end of the world to be shot at and blown up. It just interests me all these new policies the government is coming up with, what's next "shoot Arabs for the dole?".
Heard about this on Triple J the other night, What annoys me is not the fact that they are limiting access to the means on determining ways to die, i hold no opinion on that matter. What gets me going is the government once again deciding what is good for people, telling them what to think. This point is very interesting i thought, when information in regards to suicide is conveyed in an email is illegal whilst the same information written in a letter is not. This goes back to the fedral government having censorship rights on electronic format whist state governments have control over written content, but really, how stupid. Oh and by the way, i some how think a $110k fine to someone e-mailing someone else discussing options for suicide is really going to make them feel more like they WANT TO LIVE.
here here!!
Whilst on the topic of death, i'd like to mention that death taxes (in whatever forms) suck a great deal.
Particularly superannuation- you have to have it. You pay tax on it putting money in, you are forced to pay tax on it when getting it in bulk (though the super changes last year may have fixed this) and then you pay tax on it when you die. My family all unleashed tirades on it over dinner the other night, so i presume somebody in a high place thought it was a good idea and told the media. (^%$^$ media) Why dont you just tax people a bit more for doing what you require them to do? ... or something
I agree totally, any form of taxing the dead seems to be a bit extreme, in fact the entire tax system in general sucks a great deal, i dont mind having to pay taxes, they are used to provide services, but does there have to be so many? I have to pay income tax, GST, HECs, Stamp Duty, Registrations, captial gains if i ever sell my place for more than what i brought it for, medicare and a host of other minor taxes. How about we get our acts into gear mr government and have a tax system that your average university graduate can understand, cause at the moment i can't make heads nor tails of anything. In an ideal situation we would be all working to better everyone and there would be no need for all this tax shit
What you fail to see here, is that the accountants actually rule over australia. Everyone in the government is but a puppet to an accountant and as such, things will only ever get more complicated.
Though on a more serious note, I am happy to pay taxes to fund the dole etc, to prop up my fellow man, so to speak. I care not to have homeless socities like america which only helps a discrimination-by-class system evolve. I am not happy to pay taxes to fund useless shit/payouts that props up wankers in the government/their mates. They can go fuck off. This goes double for the current tasmanian labor party.
My other complaint is how is it possible that the wealthy individuals like the packers and murdochs of this world manage to pay about the same tax as i do? This is also obviously the accounts ruling over everything. If there is an afterlife you can bet that some account has charged you a tax on the journey you have to take to get there, and admittance fees<./jme>
looks liek java developers are cooler than most; we believe that all the other languages are co crap its not even worth effort discussing how crap they are. For the record, how the fuck can java be out nerded by vb?
Over $120 billion was lost in the USA due to employee fraud last year. And this figure is growing.
Really? I cant think of a better way to steal information, if its that easy- plug it in, wait a while, unplug and reap thw rewards I'll admit that going to the trouble of getting one of these will diminish the number of punters getting up to this gig, but its not entirely discountable.
One testimonial from the same site:
"I bought KeyGhost because I can't afford to lose a single thing I type. KeyGhost just reduced my stress almost 100%! If you own Windows, you have to have KeyGhost :-) Reichart..."
Not really applicable for the audience of the product. It works externally to the OS anyway so the windows bit is basically meaningless- just enough to establish a bit of a stronger link with the audience. I bet the reader/extracting device costs 4x what the unit itself costs too so its not particularly a cheap option. Just download some crap off the internet and you'll be keylogged in no time. There are freeware keyloggers. The best option would be to enact some sort of backup regime really. The shit you type is only half of it. Its not something that you could automate to get your precious data back, once typed, the context of the data is lost. You could press save more often too.
The website also notes that
The log in the KeyGhost cannot be tampered with. It is an authentic record of what was typed, and therefore, it may be used as strong evidence in a court of law.
Well at least its fair. But remind me again why its needed to be deployed in dell laptops?
The products when purchased individually, range from $89US to $199US. So dell get them for cheaps, call it 1/4 price. You are paying another $20US to $50US for the privilage of being easy to take down if you go against the grain.
So leave something heavy on your computers keyboard when you are not using it. At 3 keys/sec, you'll be able to overwrite your history in a little under a week.
Better turn off your screen and plug the bugger in too.
pbwiki pulled some shenanigans when i was writing this so there may be problems with it. Im tired and cbf proofing it before i save it. meh
Heavy objects on keyboards are the new tin foil hats.
May 28 06
Politicalness shits me off, danger am emo or something.
I found this site today ([http://leighm.net/blog/]), and i thought i could borrow some of its material
Its the 14 characteristics of fascism, and how close the yanks have come.
Characteristic
Example
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
Fight the war, bitch
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
guantanamo bay, anyone? and the shit like this that keeps popping up (if you think that free speach is a human right. i do)
3. Identification of enemies/ scapegoats as a unifying cause.
one good example would be our mate, osama
4. The supremacy of the military/ avid militarism.
not really applicable
5. Rampant sexism.
This one either
6. A controlled mass media.
Depending on your political standpoint, there is a news agency for you. You may think that this is a good thing, but they are influincing you. you tards
7. Obsession with nationalism
re: terrorism
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
Hurrah for christianity. muslims are dirty and stuff
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
Safe here for the time being
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
obsession with crime=csi bs, although crime is in increasingly frequent theme for the nonfiction theme these days. riaa/mpaa could star here too
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
enron/worldcom/etc earmarking and lobbying
14. Fraudulent elections.
last american election? and what about the track history for electronic voting machines?
Heh, if i bothered to put some linkage in there to point at sources i bet that would not look like a hurried bunch of shit slammed together. I will also finish with an inspired image: from the 'say no to national id card' brits.
I am not Danger, but I can have an opinion too. This article makes me worried. And although I like Blu-ray because it has a cool name, maybe HD DVD deserves my support. it may seem a little nasty but the fact is that if you are spending however many thousands of dollars on a HD tv and player and cables etc you are going to be buying legit movies. besides, HD-DVD has basically the same DRM features. RANT MODE: in fact the only real reason that 'Next-Gen DVD' is even emerging this year is because of a need on the part of content owners for robust DRM. the market at large is more than happy with DVD as it is. there is only a tiny part of the market that will go HD this year or even next. the studios just want unbreakable anti-piracy features, and that means online authentication - the one thing that boh the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD DRM solutions have in common.
Angry. Expect me to say more on this subject later. Feel free to comment too ladies....
Apr 8 06
I am thinking this page is a tad superflous, i could be letting myself go on a good rant with some of the stuff that will be placed here, but I digress. (I love that word)
Anyway the thing I want everybody to consider is censorship. We missed out on it a few weeks back when the labor party decided it would be a good idea to enact internet filtering in order to fight paedophilia. The bill was defeated. So the bill being defeated was good, because the bastards always have alterior motives. Child pr0n is inherently evil, and Im against peds all the way. I am not, however about to give up my personal freedoms in order to stop even people like this. And (getting to my point) this is why: open up google.cn in one tab, and google in another. See the difference? This is the shit we get into when we start letting the government do what it may in order to 'protect us'.
Apr 5 06
So what about trusted computing then? I love the design, the music, the topic.
(edit: turns out while I came across this link just on the internet, I have been seeding the high res video of this for quite some time. Just snagged it from http://www.legaltorrents.com/ one night- and never bothered to watch it =) )
Tip: To turn text into a link, highlight the text, then click on a page or file from the list above.
Comments (3)
Pazu said
at 2:31 pm on Apr 10, 2006
The thing that really shits me about the proposed 'solution' to the evil influence of the interent on 'our' children is that it is communism. Well, not exactly but it is a workable analogy. At the moment a parent can get personal filtering software which works ok. The government maintains that many parents are not using this software. Their solution: mandatory ISP level filtering. This form of content filtering is far less effective than a personal software solution and affects EVERYONE. Basically because many parents are not bothering to protect their own children the government wants to filter the internet for everyone, regardless of individual wishes. So basically the situation is: since many parents are not using effective filtering software we are going to implement ineffective filtering on EVERYBODY and we will judge what people can see. That is bullshit. It won't protect children from the dangers of the internet, but it will give the government a tool with which to control people's access to information.
dangeresque said
at 12:49 am on Apr 11, 2006
the government always knows how to look after its 'citizens'
danger said
at 9:51 am on Feb 13, 2007
im being ousted from my own soapbox?
is jme trying to cens0rize and stife public debate?
i vote not to trust him. his arguments are good, almost too good.
(dramatic pause, zoom in, kill music) he could be a _spy_
You don't have permission to comment on this page.
Comments (3)
Pazu said
at 2:31 pm on Apr 10, 2006
The thing that really shits me about the proposed 'solution' to the evil influence of the interent on 'our' children is that it is communism. Well, not exactly but it is a workable analogy. At the moment a parent can get personal filtering software which works ok. The government maintains that many parents are not using this software. Their solution: mandatory ISP level filtering. This form of content filtering is far less effective than a personal software solution and affects EVERYONE. Basically because many parents are not bothering to protect their own children the government wants to filter the internet for everyone, regardless of individual wishes. So basically the situation is: since many parents are not using effective filtering software we are going to implement ineffective filtering on EVERYBODY and we will judge what people can see. That is bullshit. It won't protect children from the dangers of the internet, but it will give the government a tool with which to control people's access to information.
dangeresque said
at 12:49 am on Apr 11, 2006
the government always knows how to look after its 'citizens'
danger said
at 9:51 am on Feb 13, 2007
im being ousted from my own soapbox?
is jme trying to cens0rize and stife public debate?
i vote not to trust him. his arguments are good, almost too good.
(dramatic pause, zoom in, kill music) he could be a _spy_
You don't have permission to comment on this page.