Recent Posts
Yeah I saw that, though I'd almost want to split that off from the more IP/internet thread.-TaoPhoenix (March 14, 2013, 08:57 PM)
EPIC has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the
Department of Homeland Security, following the agency's failure to
produce any documents about so-called "Emergency Wireless Protocols,"
(otherwise known as Standard Operating Procedure 303 or "SOP 303").
SOP 303 describes the process that DHS would follow in order to execute
a communications shutdown in the event of a national crisis. DHS has
stated publicly that under SOP 303 an agency component "will function
as the focal point for coordinating any actions leading up to and
following the termination of private wireless network connections, both
within a localized area, such as a tunnel or bridge, and within an
entire metropolitan area." In response to EPIC's initial FOIA request,
however, DHS wrote that it was "unable to locate or identify any
responsive records."
EPIC: FOIA Lawsuit against DHS re "SOP 303" (Feb. 27, 2013)
http://epic.org/foia...OP_303_Complaint.pdf
DHS: "2006-2007 NSTAC Issue Review" (2007)
http://epic.org/redi...AC-issue-review.html
EPIC: Initial FOIA Request to DHS re: SOP 303 (Jul. 10, 2012)
http://epic.org/foia...303_FOIA_Request.PDF
EPIC: Open Government
http://epic.org/privacy/litigation/
The financial data of American citizens is set to be open season for spy agencies as the fight against terrorism and cybercrime continues.
According to Reuters, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) may one day soon have the ability to access a central database which records and contains financial transactions made by American citizens — something that only law enforcement agencies have had unbridled access to.
Google has given several ad blocker apps the boot for being in violation of its developer distribution agreement.
Advertising blocking apps Ad Blocker, AdBlock Plus, AdAway and AdFree were all taken off Google Play overnight after Google enforced a term in its developer agreement prohibiting developers from disrupting others' services.
We've long criticized the vague language of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act(CISPA). One particularly dangerous provision, designed to enable corporations to obtain and share information, is drafted broadly enough to go beyond just companies, creating a government access loophole.
To take the devil's advocate stance here- so we're banning things based on what others *might* do with them? That seems a bit draconian...-wraith808 (March 10, 2013, 08:39 PM)
The real hassle with adblocking is when you're counting on ad revenue to run a business.
But honestly, the bottom line is very much there even with adblocking. I know people visiting my client sites adblock at a fairly high rate, and I don't completely blame them.
If everything is being managed correctly, a simple header-footer ad arrangement returns nearly 10:1 over the cost of hard drive space and bandwidth. If a business can't make ends meet on that, they either are too small of a scale, or are wasting large sums of money elsewhere.
I actually show a higher return per unit cost giving away hosting than I do selling it. It's all in what kinds of content you have, and how it is presented.
But once again, because big business can't handle playing by the rules and treating the end user with respect, the little guy gets shafted and has to deal with users conditioned to either ignore or block ads.
What really irks me is I have multiple times told the advertising networks text and images only. No flash, no sound. And every time I turn around I'm seeing one of those stupid blinky noisemaking flash ads in my rotation, irritating my clients as much as it irritates me. A few times as well I've observed malware in ads too, although when I find one of these I usually flag it with the advertiser so it gets pulled down.-SeraphimLabs (March 11, 2013, 11:50 AM)
The GSMA will recommend that operators join a program that allows mobile subscribers to report SMS spam using short codes in an effort to gather more data on a growing annoyance.
Hahaha.
Bit strange your checkflight went into the night though. Especially with Night/IFR being a totally different set of training/exams :O
I intend to throw myself in and do all the flying in a short period of time, hence the crowd-funding idea. The ONLY thing stopping me, is funds.
I keep myself up to scratch as much as possible by reading ground school docs, and (as odd as it sounds) going on Flight Simulator every now and again...I know FS isn't exactly perfect, but, it's all I have, and I guess it is better than nothing...and with the right setup, it can be pretty damn realistic, especially when I boot up X-Plane 10-Stephen66515 (March 08, 2013, 07:31 PM)
He took me into the night to make sure I knew how to navigate at nighttime. He put foggles on me and had me fly all kind of different courses, and then with no GPS I had to figure out where I was and fly back to the base (Osan Air Base, S.Korea). Oh, and he also changed the gyro compass out something like 45 degrees while I was under the foggles to see if I could recognize the problem while trying to find my way back home. Luckily I figured it out when I was flying north by the gyro and was seeing ocean instead of mountains. lol That's when I reset the gyro to the magnetic compass and turned back on the correct (true) course. Then using the old AM band nav, I tuned into a radio station south of the base to triangulate my approximate location. It's really unnerving at night time, especially with ocean on one side and mountains on the other. lol-Tinman57 (March 08, 2013, 08:18 PM)-Stephen66515 (March 09, 2013, 09:32 AM)
^From my experience, it doesn't happen very often in practice. Law enforcement will usually let you file the complaint. But unless you can document an actual quantifiable and substantial financial loss, it just stops there. And forget the FBI. Unless you're a financial institution or defense contractor - or you have a provable financial loss up in the millions.
What mostly happens is the information you provide gets filed. If your issue is part of a larger pattern, something may eventually happen. But if it's a smaller "one off" sort of crime they seldom open an active investigation. At least from my experience.
Probably all depends on where you live, how busy the police are, and how interested they become in what's happened to you.-40hz (March 08, 2013, 09:27 PM)
Yeah - that's probably it. I have returned the annoyance to its owner today so I can't play with it any more.
Maybe I am being stupid but I thought if you wanted to run something as a service it had to be registered as a service??-Carol Haynes (March 08, 2013, 08:09 PM)
I did it the hard way, flying 3 to 5 flights a week when possible while taking ground school at the same time. Walked away with my Private Pilots License in a little under 8 months and started leasing a Piper Warrior a couple months later.-Tinman57 (March 08, 2013, 07:15 PM)
I was flying a lot, back when funds allowed, and when they ran out, I didn't fly for over a year
Last time I flew was last month, but only for 1 hour...that's the first time in ageeeees-Stephen66515 (March 08, 2013, 07:31 PM)
at the risk of the basement, exactly who do you call - and more importantly WHO will be willing to open an investigation.
AFAIK something like this would generally be handled under civil rather than criminal law unless you could interest a prosecutor in basing a case around some sort of cybercrime.
Good luck. you can't even get the cops interested in looking into major data security breeches. So when it comes to something like bitcoins, I don't think that will gain much traction with the police.
Not saying it's right. Just saying how it usually works. At least where I live.
-40hz (March 08, 2013, 12:51 PM)
I wouldn't buy the game even if it didn't have DRM.
For one, I'm done with EA - they're some of the worst scumbags in the games industry at the moment. Absorbing good franchises and turning them into crap.
But I'm not even going to download the cracked version. From what I've seen so far, the game has purrrrdy graphics, but that's about it - the gameplay has been dumbed down, and the city size is ludicrously restricted.
Here's a link to a much better game :-)-f0dder (March 08, 2013, 07:39 PM)
now EA will blame piracy among PC users for the declining sales.-lanux128 (March 08, 2013, 08:56 AM)
Yep.
But truth be told, it will be the pirates that actually add value to the game by making it playable~!
-Renegade (March 08, 2013, 09:19 AM)
It will be up to our hero's, the hackers, to patch this game so it won't phone home and be more user friendly. I've had many games that refused to even run because of the DRM crap coded into it, and these games cost anywhere from $30 to $49 each. Thank god I was able to find either hacked patches or the complete hacked game online. The only problem there is now days ALMOST ALL of the hacked games you find on the internet now are loaded with viruses or malware, or the websites themselves have viruses/malware. 
In most of the examples given, we're still doing the same tasks, but with digital versions of it. Technology gets its revenge (see Revenge Theory) when what was designed to save you time/money actually costs you dearly.-zridling (March 07, 2013, 03:44 PM)
