Step 1 would be to pardon Snowden. He was whistleblowing on an illegal and dangerous program that directly threatened our democracy and took steps to totalitarianism. But instead of honoring that, Obama and his DoJ instead go to SXSW and give insulting, condescending talks about how we should stop working on "cat apps" and come be a drone for Uncle Sam. Why? So you can demand all our expertise but trust none of our judgement? So you can underpay us, give us no voice at the table, but then insult our intelligence by acting like serving these crooks is some noble cause? Lawyers run the country, Congress is all lawyers and no engineers. But then they run into problems related to technology and they say "bring in the nerds". Well, the word you're looking for is experts, and they're in the West Coast making way more money and building real technology instead of bureaucratic bullshit and illegal authoritarian tools of oppression. And maybe smoking recreational marijuana without having to bullshit their way through some bogus polygraph (not that those even work). I can't imagine anyone but the most naive would work for the NSA, FBI, or CIA if they had any other options.
> Lawyers run the country, Congress is all lawyers and no engineers.
“In my years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”
— John Adams
It's simply a matter of scale. Because the government has accrued so many powers beyond the founding intent, it has become attractive to buy it. As people buy it, the government invests in more powers to keep the gravy going. As long as they do it gradually enough, and make it seem like they have a moral imperative to spend your money because they know better, the state will continue to grow. More power, more corruption; more corruption, more power — until it all becomes too much. If Edward Snowden could offer the government more power to attract more relationship investment from business, then he would have been pardoned in Barack Obama's tenure.
As I have said before, I can deal with almost anything if you pay me enough.
But they don't pay anyone enough to deal with unlimited bullshit. And that's what you get when your boss's boss has no idea what you do or how you do it, and whenever he does the manager's power walk, it looks like you're just sitting there, doing nothing.
The polygraph machine is a psychological trick. The actual lie detector is the operator, just like in Meet the Parents, and the ritual and setting is intended to intimidate you, belittle you, and make you stressed enough for the human to get a read on your reactions.
The test isn't entirely bullshit, but the machine sure is, and I sure wish they'd find a better way to do it without all the gratuitous bullying and humiliation. And since the detectors are human, there's no way to guarantee consistency across tests w.r.t. false positives and false negatives.
Regarding polygraphs, I've heard form a friend who gets administered them routinely, that they are actually fairly effective. By effective I don't mean that they can tell if a person is lying, the science behind them is as far as I know completely bogus, but in the hands of a skilled interrogator they can be very effective at convincing otherwise rational people to admit all shorts of things to the government that they shouldn't, and more importantly, that the government would otherwise have absolutely no way of finding out.
I don't really understand why people have an issue with polygraphs. They're pretty effective for the sole task they're designed for. As long as people don't try to involve them in legal cases (or otherwise use them as a genuine barometer for honesty), what's the problem?
Well, they create a culture of distrust, and when crossed with issues like drug use which may not be relevant to work concerns, it's going to scare high-value prospective employees.
Some kinds of organizations require some level of distrust in their culture. And the issue seems to really lie with how the employer handles past drug use. My understanding is many organizations, including some government agencies, tend to be fairly lenient about admitted past drug use (depending on many factors like how long ago it was and the kind of drug).
I think in an ideal world, questions about past use would never be asked and drug tests would be strictly limited to determining if someone is high/drunk on the job. The fundamental problem is employers losing potentially valuable employees due to their unnecessary and invasive drug policies. The polygraph isn't to blame.
If a culture exists which relies upon distrust, that culture is tightly-controlled, so that such distrust can be usefully exploited by the /elite/ to put the community in check, when required by the elite.
When you combine this with government, you have a recipe for "your life is over" workplace weather conditions. Maybe that storm only blows in once every 10 years, and doesn't take many people... so if you're high-functioning, you might not want to join the island where the heroes are fed to the Minotaur when the political climate goes South, sometimes without warning.
You might want to join the place where the worst-case scenario fail condition is a pink slip and a bad blog post. Naturally.
>We can't say, as a society, that something is ok in one scenario, but say it's bullshit when it matters.
Sure we can.
Sometimes carefully crafted bullshit can be ok. For example, when countries conduct diplomacy, or when poker players bluff, or when intelligence agencies need to hire someone and attempt to scare them into telling the truth or trick them into revealing a lie.
The court system is not a place that should tolerate any kind of bullshit (though like most systems, it sadly does to an extent), so it's different.
We have the same issues with polygraph tests as with traditional witch tests:
* swimming test (aka trial by water): throw them chained into water. a witch would stay afloat, an innocent would sink like a stone.
* prayer test: witches cannot speak scriptures aloud, without making mistakes or omissions. but even if you can it was a devil's trick.
* touch test: victims of sorcery would have a special reaction to physical contact with their evildoer
* witch cake: In cases of mysterious illness or possession, witch-hunters would take a sample of the victim’s urine, mix it with rye-meal and ashes and bake it into a cake. This stomach-turning concoction was then fed to a dog—the “familiars,” or animal helpers, of witches, and would spell out the name. It worked with well in Salem, as knowledge of the recipe led to the conviction then.
* witch marks: numb and insensitive to pain. Moles, scars, birthmarks, sores, supernumerary nipples and tattoos could all qualify.
Well, congress is largely responsible for crafting, reviewing, and changing legislation, which is laws, so being a lawyer probably makes a lot of sense. Let's not pretend engineers are incapable of making mistakes, or not fully considering the implications of an action and having to review and fix it later. Engineers are largely kept from making too many mistakes by having evolved a strict set of guidelines to and regulations to adhere to. Many of those same regulations that keep engineers in check were put in place by lawyers.
Eh, no? That is what the advisory apparatus, the library and the slowness is for.. So none ecperts could read up. They became on the fly Domain Experts. That is what lobbyism was.. Influencing the Research of ready made experts. The reason lawyers dominate today is neither skill or Expertise.. just caste.
Gun control is a completely different kettle of fish, because it is so unlikely for someone to recover from an attack; these aren't beanbag shotguns we're talking about. Also, there are no procedures that you can follow to prevent an unexpected bullet from quickly killing you, whereas with, say, an unexpected DoS, you can take measures to mitigate it after it has already started to hit you. With a security breach, you can lock down, wipe and recover from backups. But that bullet, it is just so uniquely final (and therefore, off topic, hence the downvotes).
The National Research Council conducted a thorough review of evidence some years ago and found no correlation between the introduction of gun control measures and reduction in violent crime. In certain jurisdictions, there is a negative correlation (probably unethical to do a RCT, so we'll never know if causal) between certain thresholds in gun ownership rates and the rate of violent crime. The accidental injury and death figures are not convincing when compared with other common risks.
If your respirator monitoring machine gets hacked, or your records can not be retrieved to show a drug sensitivity, you could die from complications in an ER. I know for a fact that the hospitals near me run Windows XP, connected to the public internet, on mission critical systems. If a system which controls a switchable lane freeway signal gets hacked, even with generic malware which accidentally causes a crash, a distracted driver could plow into another.
P.S. I'm facinated by your turn of phrase kettle of fish, here it would be a can of worms. Especially strange to me considering what I would think a kettle is [0][1][2][3][4]. Turns out there's such a thing as a fish kettle [5].
> They also found it was pretty hard to study general trends, due to an overwhelming number of factors and poor quality of source data.
If the effects of gun laws can be lost in noise among crime statistics, and the right of the people to keep and bear them shall not be infringed, it seems pretty outrageous to suggest that there is any reason to introduce equivalent laws which a) infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms and b) have had no effect that can be detected in the statistics in any implemented form.
Vital records and the corresponding court records are an excellent, high-quality datasource. If your "life saving" laws can not be detected in vital statistics, then you have failed.
I've always wondered why we don't just put restrictions on hand guns, but leave rifles fairly unrestricted.
It seems like the majority of problems gun control advocates have with firearms is because of hand guns, which are small enough to be easily concealed by people that shouldn't have them in places they shouldn't have them. It also seems like the majority of the practical arguments that control rights advocates have center around the utility of firearms. And if you're making a case for firearms as a check on the government and military, you really want rifles over hand guns anyway.
If the major problems with guns are that they are easy to conceal and transport surreptitiously to locations they should not be, focusing on those attributes makes sense.
Your mistake is that you've brought reason to a gunfight. The NRA's response would be to say that banning handguns is a slippery slope to taking all the guns.
Yeah, I understand the NRA's expected response, but that doesn't account for the other side not attempting the argument. Unless they do and I just don't see it.
The NRA has the response it has because banning pistols as a prelude to banning or licensing all guns has already been tried. They're not idiots, many of them have lived through most of the history of the gun control movement, some have lived through all of it. Also, they can read. They know the aim is banning all guns. The '60s NRA was willing to meet gun control people in the middle. Now they're not because they've learned that the gun control people are not willing to stop there.
But it's not, for all people, and framing the discussion that way is very disingenuous of them. I don't want to ban all guns, I just want to address the problem (because I do think there is a problem), so not everyone wants that.
There is a coalition of gun control people. Some of them want to ban or heavily restrict handguns but don't care much about long guns. Some of them want to ban all guns. The ones who want to ban handguns don't appear to object to banning all guns. If they do object it's not a priority and they're politically irrelevant.
That doesn't seem to be a very helpful point of view. You also didn't support it in any way. Would you take me saying the reverse without requesting evidence for that opinion? e.g.
There is a coalition of gun rights people. Some of them want absolutely no restrictions whatsoever. Some of them are accepting of some controls on certain types of guns. The ones that are accepting of certain types of controls don't appear to object to shutting down any control of guns. If they do object it's not a priority and they're politically irrelevant.
Is it possible your view on this is colored by the narrative that's been presented by people with a vested interest? It wouldn't be the first time that a loud minority controlled a narrative and thus the issue. It's easy to believe there are no moderates, or they constitute a minority, if both sides think the other side is unreasonable and reaching too far, as that can cause people to vote against the perceived agenda of the other side rather than for what they themselves really want.
I think that what you wrote is basically accurate. There was previously a potential lasting bargain where handguns would have been heavily restricted and long guns not so much. The trust and belief in the good faith of the opposing side is now gone on both sides.
It is absolutely possible that my views on this topic have been coloured by people with a vested interest, i.e. people who care about it. I don't believe there are no moderates, nor that they constitute a minority. I think the immoderates care more, spend more and are better organised so they have a disproportionate effect on what happens.
Given the choice between getting 80% of what they want and 5% people will choose the first, avoiding defeat at the hands of the enemy has a higher priority than actual perfection.
Considering we're posting on a website called "Hacker News", I can only assume I'm not the only one deeply frustrated by that title, and the opening paragraph.
There's the hacker vs. cracker debate, but this is just profoundly disrespectful to me. There's no intentional disrespect here. The author probably has no idea. (Granted, a search for "hacker culture" does yield a Wikipedia article making it quite clear.) I feel disrespected for the complete lack of research on the term and because my core identity is being unintentionally slandered with such _brevity_ without even being understood or recognized. I continue to identify myself to others outside of the software community as a "free software hacker". And when someone sees this website on my computer---Hacker News---what are they to assume? When I'm sitting on an airplane looking at this site, what are they to assume?
Some people will assume you are the one to call when their computer is broken. Some others will assume you are the reason why their computer is broken.
Many of the famous and not so famous hacks were basically from refusal to follow manufacturer's instructions regarding upgrading OS versions (Home Depot, Target, for POS terminals, or National Health Service and others running on Windows XP which is no longer supported by the vendor) or not using 2-factor identification with a Yubikey or similar device (Clinton campaign John Podesta, Colin Powell).
Another large health insurer (Anthem?) was audited by the federal government for security issues and then refused to implement the recommendations.
Following software manufacturer's recommendations and using 2-factor identification and a Yukikey would go a long way to provide a lot of hacking.
Hiring security consultants that put in additional cybersecurity software would also help in a number of cases.
38 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 84.6 ms ] thread“In my years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.”
— John Adams
It's simply a matter of scale. Because the government has accrued so many powers beyond the founding intent, it has become attractive to buy it. As people buy it, the government invests in more powers to keep the gravy going. As long as they do it gradually enough, and make it seem like they have a moral imperative to spend your money because they know better, the state will continue to grow. More power, more corruption; more corruption, more power — until it all becomes too much. If Edward Snowden could offer the government more power to attract more relationship investment from business, then he would have been pardoned in Barack Obama's tenure.
But they don't pay anyone enough to deal with unlimited bullshit. And that's what you get when your boss's boss has no idea what you do or how you do it, and whenever he does the manager's power walk, it looks like you're just sitting there, doing nothing.
The polygraph machine is a psychological trick. The actual lie detector is the operator, just like in Meet the Parents, and the ritual and setting is intended to intimidate you, belittle you, and make you stressed enough for the human to get a read on your reactions.
The test isn't entirely bullshit, but the machine sure is, and I sure wish they'd find a better way to do it without all the gratuitous bullying and humiliation. And since the detectors are human, there's no way to guarantee consistency across tests w.r.t. false positives and false negatives.
I think in an ideal world, questions about past use would never be asked and drug tests would be strictly limited to determining if someone is high/drunk on the job. The fundamental problem is employers losing potentially valuable employees due to their unnecessary and invasive drug policies. The polygraph isn't to blame.
When you combine this with government, you have a recipe for "your life is over" workplace weather conditions. Maybe that storm only blows in once every 10 years, and doesn't take many people... so if you're high-functioning, you might not want to join the island where the heroes are fed to the Minotaur when the political climate goes South, sometimes without warning.
You might want to join the place where the worst-case scenario fail condition is a pink slip and a bad blog post. Naturally.
That's the problem I have with them. We can't say, as a society, that something is ok in one scenario, but say it's bullshit when it matters.
Sure we can.
Sometimes carefully crafted bullshit can be ok. For example, when countries conduct diplomacy, or when poker players bluff, or when intelligence agencies need to hire someone and attempt to scare them into telling the truth or trick them into revealing a lie.
The court system is not a place that should tolerate any kind of bullshit (though like most systems, it sadly does to an extent), so it's different.
* swimming test (aka trial by water): throw them chained into water. a witch would stay afloat, an innocent would sink like a stone.
* prayer test: witches cannot speak scriptures aloud, without making mistakes or omissions. but even if you can it was a devil's trick.
* touch test: victims of sorcery would have a special reaction to physical contact with their evildoer
* witch cake: In cases of mysterious illness or possession, witch-hunters would take a sample of the victim’s urine, mix it with rye-meal and ashes and bake it into a cake. This stomach-turning concoction was then fed to a dog—the “familiars,” or animal helpers, of witches, and would spell out the name. It worked with well in Salem, as knowledge of the recipe led to the conviction then.
* witch marks: numb and insensitive to pain. Moles, scars, birthmarks, sores, supernumerary nipples and tattoos could all qualify.
* Pricking and Scratching Tests on these marks.
* Incantations: very similar to a polygraph test
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-bizarre-witch-tr...
They all worked extremely well over hundreds of years.
aye, even things that aren't true.
The same thing could happen to anyone.
Well, congress is largely responsible for crafting, reviewing, and changing legislation, which is laws, so being a lawyer probably makes a lot of sense. Let's not pretend engineers are incapable of making mistakes, or not fully considering the implications of an action and having to review and fix it later. Engineers are largely kept from making too many mistakes by having evolved a strict set of guidelines to and regulations to adhere to. Many of those same regulations that keep engineers in check were put in place by lawyers.
If your respirator monitoring machine gets hacked, or your records can not be retrieved to show a drug sensitivity, you could die from complications in an ER. I know for a fact that the hospitals near me run Windows XP, connected to the public internet, on mission critical systems. If a system which controls a switchable lane freeway signal gets hacked, even with generic malware which accidentally causes a crash, a distracted driver could plow into another.
P.S. I'm facinated by your turn of phrase kettle of fish, here it would be a can of worms. Especially strange to me considering what I would think a kettle is [0][1][2][3][4]. Turns out there's such a thing as a fish kettle [5].
[0]: https://www.google.ca/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle [1]: https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle [2]: https://www.google.com.au/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle [3]: https://www.google.co.nz/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle [4]: https://www.google.co.in/search?tbm=isch&q=kettle [5]: http://www.phrases.org.uk/images/fish-kettle.jpg
They also found it was pretty hard to study general trends, due to an overwhelming number of factors and poor quality of source data.
If the effects of gun laws can be lost in noise among crime statistics, and the right of the people to keep and bear them shall not be infringed, it seems pretty outrageous to suggest that there is any reason to introduce equivalent laws which a) infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms and b) have had no effect that can be detected in the statistics in any implemented form.
Vital records and the corresponding court records are an excellent, high-quality datasource. If your "life saving" laws can not be detected in vital statistics, then you have failed.
It seems like the majority of problems gun control advocates have with firearms is because of hand guns, which are small enough to be easily concealed by people that shouldn't have them in places they shouldn't have them. It also seems like the majority of the practical arguments that control rights advocates have center around the utility of firearms. And if you're making a case for firearms as a check on the government and military, you really want rifles over hand guns anyway.
If the major problems with guns are that they are easy to conceal and transport surreptitiously to locations they should not be, focusing on those attributes makes sense.
But it's not, for all people, and framing the discussion that way is very disingenuous of them. I don't want to ban all guns, I just want to address the problem (because I do think there is a problem), so not everyone wants that.
There is a coalition of gun rights people. Some of them want absolutely no restrictions whatsoever. Some of them are accepting of some controls on certain types of guns. The ones that are accepting of certain types of controls don't appear to object to shutting down any control of guns. If they do object it's not a priority and they're politically irrelevant.
Is it possible your view on this is colored by the narrative that's been presented by people with a vested interest? It wouldn't be the first time that a loud minority controlled a narrative and thus the issue. It's easy to believe there are no moderates, or they constitute a minority, if both sides think the other side is unreasonable and reaching too far, as that can cause people to vote against the perceived agenda of the other side rather than for what they themselves really want.
It is absolutely possible that my views on this topic have been coloured by people with a vested interest, i.e. people who care about it. I don't believe there are no moderates, nor that they constitute a minority. I think the immoderates care more, spend more and are better organised so they have a disproportionate effect on what happens.
Given the choice between getting 80% of what they want and 5% people will choose the first, avoiding defeat at the hands of the enemy has a higher priority than actual perfection.
Edit: going to leave this link right here, since it's incredibly relevant: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/03/researche...
#4) Hacking is cool
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...
There's the hacker vs. cracker debate, but this is just profoundly disrespectful to me. There's no intentional disrespect here. The author probably has no idea. (Granted, a search for "hacker culture" does yield a Wikipedia article making it quite clear.) I feel disrespected for the complete lack of research on the term and because my core identity is being unintentionally slandered with such _brevity_ without even being understood or recognized. I continue to identify myself to others outside of the software community as a "free software hacker". And when someone sees this website on my computer---Hacker News---what are they to assume? When I'm sitting on an airplane looking at this site, what are they to assume?
Had to vent.
Another large health insurer (Anthem?) was audited by the federal government for security issues and then refused to implement the recommendations.
Following software manufacturer's recommendations and using 2-factor identification and a Yukikey would go a long way to provide a lot of hacking.
Hiring security consultants that put in additional cybersecurity software would also help in a number of cases.