You are right, Octagon. This thread really is too long. Please continue here.[/quote]

BrainSmashr,

Why call the cops?....in the countryside the cops wave at young boys walking down the street with a shotgun. They know that what they're doing is nothing nefarious. They're either going hunting or more likely, shooting beercans that the cops were cleaning up from the night prior by men who should know better....

Nobody needs to own a permit for a weapon. Why do you have to be required to run and beg to big nanny 'gubmint' to get a 'right' to arm yourself? As far as I know, no philosopher has ever successfully answered that question....just as no philosopher has ever explained why man can't live for his own sake and must therefore sacrifice himself for others......if you can point me to one, I'd like to see it. Aside from Immanuel Kant, of course.

I was not talking about "the countryside". Show me a cop that waves at a gun toteing individual within the city limits and I'll show you one heck of a negligence lawsuit.

As far as reasons for needing a permit...well the most obvious is we don't want bank robbers and rapists buying .45's at Wally World.....and of course we also want to know the individual in possession of the firearm has at least had some basic training and common sense.

As far as philosophers....I think we've had that conversation before.

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1. A port scanner is not a malicious piece of software, by itself. It is only capable of scanning for open ports, not exploiting them. Not to mention that the average PC users has no need for port scanners or key loggers or any other "questionable" piece of software since the average user is not a network administrator.

There are several US statutes that purport to criminalize "intent," but that intent is always measured against some quantifiable criteria. Posessing twenty or thirty doses of an illicit drug is considered "intent to distribute." Similarly, if someone's computer has a dozen hacking tools, and hundreds of unlicensed commercial software packages, that might constitute "intent" to hack.

I haven't read the treaty in question. These international efforts tend to be long on intrusiveness and short of effectiveness.

2. You have a Constitutional right to bare arms in the USA with a permit and background check, which does not include fully-automatic weapons and some assualt rifles. Not to mention this isn't a global right, but rather one that's pretty darn unique to Americans.

And let's be realistic about this one for a second. If you saw a kid walking down your street with a pistol, shot gun, or assualt rifle....are you thinking "that's his 2nd Amendment right" or are you thinking, "I better call the cops"?

The Second Amendment doesn't mention permits and background checks. However, the US's legal tradition tempers rights with "reasonable" controls. A felon is demonstrably unable to live by the rules, and thus allowing a felon to bear arms is "unreasonable" in most states (this would be a reason for someone to continue appealing a conviction even after the sentence is over). One has the right to political speech, but the courts have decided that it is unreasonable to allow major media outlets to accept ads from one candidate and not his/her opponent.

3. If you need to "hack" into someone's elses computer for information, then you're not supposed to have that information. I see no difference here than if someone broke into my house for "TV watching purposes".

There are legitimate reasons to hack a system, just as there are legitimate reasons to crack safes or stockpile explosives. In the latter cases, governments tend to license the practitioners and limit the distribution of the tools/materials. Software "hacking tools" are inherently difficult to inventory, and much of the IT industry is anethema to government regulation of any kind.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

BrainSmashr,

Why call the cops?....in the countryside the cops wave at young boys walking down the street with a shotgun. They know that what they're doing is nothing nefarious. They're either going hunting or more likely, shooting beercans that the cops were cleaning up from the night prior by men who should know better....

Nobody needs to own a permit for a weapon. Why do you have to be required to run and beg to big nanny 'gubmint' to get a 'right' to arm yourself? As far as I know, no philosopher has ever successfully answered that question....just as no philosopher has ever explained why man can't live for his own sake and must therefore sacrifice himself for others......if you can point me to one, I'd like to see it. Aside from Immanuel Kant, of course.

---

Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Tom, do you think maybe it's time for a Political Thread [17]?

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

New Jersey has demonstrated that "united" government is perfectly capable of grinding to a halt, too :-)

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Would you prefer they make "possession" the crime rather than conspiracy, as is the case with drugs, and explosives? Or do you think cybercriminals should just be ignored?9

This law is just a little too vague. Just because someone has a program that's capable of something malicious (like a port scanner), it doesn't mean that it would be used for a malicious purpose.

My entire life I have found the concept of waiting until a crime is committed before taking action to be quite baffling. I agree with innocent until proven guilty, but I also believe in the idea that possession means intent.

Guns are also used for crimes, but again, that doesn't mean that a person that has one will use it for a crime. We all know that a gun is a tool meant to kill.

C'mon, what's the purpose of possessing hacking software AND instructions for use if you don't intend to, at the very least, conduct a few experiments?

Information purposes.

1. A port scanner is not a malicious piece of software, by itself. It is only capable of scanning for open ports, not exploiting them. Not to mention that the average PC users has no need for port scanners or key loggers or any other "questionable" piece of software since the average user is not a network administrator.

2. You have a Constitutional right to bare arms in the USA with a permit and background check, which does not include fully-automatic weapons and some assualt rifles. Not to mention this isn't a global right, but rather one that's pretty darn unique to Americans.

And let's be realistic about this one for a second. If you saw a kid walking down your street with a pistol, shot gun, or assualt rifle....are you thinking "that's his 2nd Amendment right" or are you thinking, "I better call the cops"?

3. If you need to "hack" into someone's elses computer for information, then you're not supposed to have that information. I see no difference here than if someone broke into my house for "TV watching purposes".

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America's first modern president

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
THE UNION-TRIBUNE

July 9, 2006

Artists are seldom appreciated in their own time. The same can be true for U.S. presidents.

Nearly 100 years after leaving office, Theodore Roosevelt is more popular than ever. While biographers in his day sneered at him as a showman who was all talk and no action, he is now seen as one of America's most consequential presidents.

Worshiped by fellow Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Roosevelt is also admired by Democrats. Bill Clinton kept a bust of T.R. on his desk in the Oval Office.

That popularity is one reason T.R. recently landed on the cover of Time magazine. The publication put together a complimentary series of articles about the nation's 26th president, including an essay by presidential adviser and history buff Karl Rove on the lessons Americans could learn from Roosevelt.

Personally, I've always thought that the public's fascination with Teddy Roosevelt had a lot to do with his maverick ways. Elected with the support of the business community, he broke up unfair monopolies and pushed for food inspection and workplace safety laws. A hero for his exploits leading the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, he was also the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the Russo-Japanese War. And although he came into office at a time when the United States was expanding and amassing great wealth, he made his mark as an environmentalist and conservationist determined to preserve natural resources so as not to – as he said – “rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”

But Teddy's independent streak is only part of the reason he's so popular, insists Dan Murphy, professor of American history at Hanover College. A Roosevelt aficionado, Murphy is writing a book on World War I-era intellectuals in which T.R. figures prominently.

For Murphy, a big reason for Roosevelt's staying power is that he could “simultaneously look in two different directions.” Assuming the presidency in 1901, he had one foot in the 19th century, another in the 20th.

“He's the first modern president and sort of created the 20th century presidency with the bully pulpit, the first progressive president who is taking us into the 20th century,” Murphy told me. “And yet he's the cowboy. He's the fellow who takes people back to the frontier and all the virtues associated with that.”

Roosevelt was also full of contradictions. Here was this brash, vibrant young president who was macho before Americans even knew what macho was. And yet he was also a serious writer, scientist and historian.

Some of his thinking led him onto dangerous ground. According to Murphy, Roosevelt developed a concern over “race suicide” – the idea that, if the older-stock Americans didn't keep pace with the birthrates of, say, Irish Catholic immigrants, the privileged class could meet its demise.

Immigrants? Birthrates? Let's see, where have I heard that line before?

Roosevelt was a major proponent of assimilation and a devotee of the Americanization movement, which pressured foreigners to learn English and adopt American values and customs. In an oft-quoted speech delivered shortly before his death in 1919, he blasted the idea of “hyphenated Americans” and worried that the country could be destroyed by “squabbling nationalities.”

Today, many who hold similar beliefs obsess over whether Hispanic immigrants are blending into society as quickly as they should be.

But in Roosevelt's day, those concerns were mostly reserved for German-Americans. That didn't necessarily make him a bigot, insisted Murphy. For Roosevelt, the ex-soldier, it was less about nativism than nationalism and patriotism – especially after the outbreak of World War I.

Eventually, Murphy acknowledged, Roosevelt “becomes pretty vehemently anti-German.” But, for the ex-soldier, it's all about the war. “Once the United States starts fighting these people,” said Murphy, “then they're the enemy.”

Many historians agree that Roosevelt invented the modern presidency, where the man shapes the office and not the other way around. It didn't hurt that he had a legendary enthusiasm for life. As T.R. noted at one point, “While president, I have been president – emphatically.”

Rove picks up on that thread, writing that Roosevelt's life was “characterized by passion and zest and a drive to achieve great things.”

I get it now. In that respect, T.R. was the very embodiment of America – not just in his time, but for all time. It's no wonder that one still can't get enough of the other.

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me@rescam.org

Weighing the real threat from North Korea

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me@rescam.org

Would you prefer they make "possession" the crime rather than conspiracy, as is the case with drugs, and explosives? Or do you think cybercriminals should just be ignored?9

This law is just a little too vague. Just because someone has a program that's capable of something malicious (like a port scanner), it doesn't mean that it would be used for a malicious purpose.

My entire life I have found the concept of waiting until a crime is committed before taking action to be quite baffling. I agree with innocent until proven guilty, but I also believe in the idea that possession means intent.

Guns are also used for crimes, but again, that doesn't mean that a person that has one will use it for a crime. We all know that a gun is a tool meant to kill.

C'mon, what's the purpose of possessing hacking software AND instructions for use if you don't intend to, at the very least, conduct a few experiments?

Information purposes.

---

This sucks.

International Convention on Cybercrime Threatens Freedom of Speech and Thought

by Carolyn Meinel

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved the Cybercrime Treaty. The next step is for the US Senate to vote on it. If it passes the treaty, it becomes the law of the land.

Note that it would outlaw possession of programs or instructions to
break into computers if a court determines that you possess them with *intent* to commit crime. This is dangerous because it criminalizes thoughts that only you know whether you really have....

story source

Would you prefer they make "possession" the crime rather than conspiracy, as is the case with drugs, and explosives? Or do you think cybercriminals should just be ignored?

My entire life I have found the concept of waiting until a crime is committed before taking action to be quite baffling. I agree with innocent until proven guilty, but I also believe in the idea that possession means intent.

C'mon, what's the purpose of possessing hacking software AND instructions for use if you don't intend to, at the very least, conduct a few experiments?

---

This sucks.

International Convention on Cybercrime Threatens Freedom of Speech and Thought

by Carolyn Meinel

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved the Cybercrime Treaty. The next step is for the US Senate to vote on it. If it passes the treaty, it becomes the law of the land.

Note that it would outlaw possession of programs or instructions to
break into computers if a court determines that you possess them with *intent* to commit crime. This is dangerous because it criminalizes thoughts that only you know whether you really have....

story source

---

The Unlearned Lesson of Ken Lay and Enron

By Alex Epstein

Former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay has just died, just over a month after being convicted of fraud, and almost five years after his company's cataclysmic collapse. The common perception of Lay is that he and other Enron leaders brought about the company's fall because, eager to make money, they schemed to bilk investors. The ethical lesson, it is said, is that we must teach (or force) businessmen to curb their selfish, profit-seeking "impulses" before they turn criminal.

But all this is wrong.

Enron was not brought down by fraud; while the company committed fraud, its fraud was primarily an attempt to cover up tens of billions of dollars already lost--not embezzled--in irrational business decisions. Most of its executives believed that Enron was a basically productive company that could be righted. This is why Chairman Ken Lay did not flee to the Caymans with riches, but stayed through the end.

What then caused this unprecedented business failure? Consider a few telling events in Enron's rise and fall.

Enron rose to prominence first as a successful provider of natural gas, and then as a creator of markets for trading natural gas as a commodity. The company made profits by performing a genuinely productive function: linking buyers and sellers, allowing both sides to control for risk.

Unfortunately, the company's leaders were not honest with themselves about the nature of their success. They wanted to be "New Economy" geniuses who could successfully enter any market they wished. As a result, they entered into ventures far beyond their expertise, based on half-baked ideas thought to be profound market insights. For example, Enron poured billions into a broadband network featuring movies-on-demand--without bothering to check whether movie studios would provide major releases (they wouldn't). They spent $3 billion on a highly inefficient power plant in India--on ludicrous assurances by a transient Indian government that they would be paid indefinitely for vastly overpriced electricity.

The mentality of Enron executives in engineering such fiascos is epitomized by an exchange, described in New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald's account of the Enron saga, between eventual CEO Jeff Skilling and subordinate Ray Bowen, on Skilling's (eventually failed) idea for Enron to sell electricity to retail customers.

An analysis of the numbers, Bowen had realized, "told a damning story . . . Profit margins were razor thin, massive capital investments were required." Skilling's response? "You're making me really nervous . . . The fact that you're focused on the numbers, and not the underlying essence of the business, worries me . . . I don't want to hear that."

When Bowen responded that "the numbers have to make sense . . . We've got to be honest [about whether] . . . we can actually make a profit," Eichenwald recounts, "Skilling bristled. 'Then you guys must not be smart enough to come up with the good ideas, because we're going to make money in this business.' . . . [Bowen] was flabbergasted. Sure, ideas were important, but they had to be built around numbers. A business wasn't going to succeed just because Jeff Skilling thought it should."

But to Skilling and other Enron executives, there was no clear distinction between what they felt should succeed, and what the facts indicated would succeed--between reality as they wished it to be and reality as it is.

Time and again, Enron executives placed their wishes above the facts. And as they experienced failure after failure, they deluded themselves into believing that any losses would somehow be overcome with massive profits in the future. This mentality led them to eagerly accept CFO Andy Fastow's absurd claims that their losses could be magically taken off the books using Special Purpose Entities; after all, they felt, Enron should have a high stock price.

Smaller lies led to bigger lies, until Enron became the biggest corporate failure and fraud in American history.

Observe that Enron's problem was not that it was "too concerned" about profit, but that it believed money does not have to be made: it can be had simply by following one's whims. The solution to prevent future Enrons, then, is not to teach (or force) CEOs to curb their profit-seeking; the desire to produce and trade valuable products is the essence of business--and of successful life.

Instead, we must teach businessmen the profound virtues money-making requires. Above all, we must teach them that one cannot profit by evading facts. The great profit-makers, such as Bill Gates and Jack Welch, accept the facts of reality--including the market, their finances, their abilities and limitations--as an absolute. "Face reality," advises Jack Welch, "as it is, not as it was or as you wish. . . You have to see the world in the purest, clearest way possible, or you can't make decisions on a rational basis."

This is what Enron's executives did not grasp--and the real lesson we should all learn from their fate.

Alex Epstein is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.




Copyright © 2006 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

U.S., Japan, Britain get tough with North Korea

San Diego Union-Tribune editorial

July 6, 2006

North Korea's provocative flurry of missile firings on the Fourth of July must invoke the first rule in dealing with that Stalinist pariah: Punish, don't reward, threatening behavior.

Thus, North Korea must be made to pay a diplomatic and economic price for its dangerous, destabilizing actions. Doing anything less would only encourage further misconduct by Kim Jong Il's defiant government. Given North Korea's already demonstrated contempt for international agreements, its own pledges, and accepted norms of behavior, inaction or appeasement would prove increasingly dangerous.

The first recourse is the United Nations Security Council, which met in emergency session yesterday morning to consider a response to North Korea's test launches of seven ballistic missiles. Japan, supported by the United States and Britain, favors a stern resolution that would stop all aid and technology that could be used for North Korea's missile programs.

Predictably, Russia and China, North Korea's nominal allies, want a far weaker Security Council response. Clearly, then, the diplomacy now under way at the United Nations must include the strongest possible pressure on China and Russia to accept a tough response. China, long North Korea's principal provider of aid and trade, must be a particular target of that pressure.

If the Security Council proves unable to act with sufficient resolve, the United States, Japan and South Korea will have to consider what action they might take on their own to counter North Korea's belligerence.

The Bush administration has already signalled, wisely, that it will not agree to one North Korean demand – bilateral negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. Beyond the Security Council, the proper forum for negotiations on halting North Korea's nuclear weapons programs remains the long-running six-party talks, which include both Koreas, Russia, China, Japan and the United States.

This doesn't preclude direct U.S.-North Korea contacts and discussions; indeed, those already occur regularly. But North Korea shouldn't be allowed to scuttle the regional six-party approach, not least because this threat is best addressed in a regional setting.

Despite North Korea's missile tests, there is time to work this problem. North Korea is a long way – at least five years, if not 10 – from posing a nuclear threat to the United States. Its shorter-range missiles, coupled with the handful of crude nuclear weapons North Korea is believed to possess, pose a theoretical threat to U.S. forces and American allies in Asia. But Kim Jong Il's government surely knows that attacking South Korea or Japan would quickly prove suicidal for the regime in Pyongyang.

For now, the real danger is proliferation of nuclear and ballistic missile technology, and the destabilizing effects of North Korea's threatening conduct. Countering these threats is an urgent matter, as the rude shock on July 4 plainly demonstrated.

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me@rescam.org

Taking the show on the road

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
THE UNION-TRIBUNE

July 5, 2006

Folks say this border city has been brazenly invaded by an unsavory and disruptive element that opportunistically puts its own interests before the greater good.

I never believed it – until lately. But what can I say now that America's Finest City is crawling with Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, who have come here to hold hearings on immigration reform?

San Diego plays host today to the first of a series of public hearings on this combustible issue. Today's hearing – “Border Vulnerabilities and International Terrorism” – will be led by Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, who chairs the House International Relations subcommittee on international terrorism and nonproliferation.

A second hearing is scheduled later in the week in Laredo, Texas.

These hearings – like the one being held also this week by Senate Republicans in Philadelphia – only have one real purpose. And it's not to hear what the public thinks. If Congress really cared what the public thought, it would hold these town hall-style meetings before considering bills, rather than after a bill is passed. The real purpose of the hearings is to make the case for the views of those who organize them, and to make mincemeat of any alternate views.

Imagine if Congress went out to the public and held town hall-style hearings every time it confronted a thorny subject that was sure to upset people. Have to vote on additional funding for the war? Hold a hearing. Feeling pressure to reform Social Security, and not sure whether to raise taxes or cut benefits? Call for hearings.

By the way, I must have missed the public hearing that was called before House members last month gave themselves a $3,300 annual pay raise to $168,500. Wouldn't you love to have had a say on that one?

It's sad. Americans used to look to Congress for leadership. But now what the institution does best is take direction from a mob.

Today, the crowds are expected to descend on a Border Patrol station in Imperial Beach. A capacity crowd is expected inside the building on Saturn Boulevard. It's supposed to be first-come, first-served. But, having attended similar town hall meetings in the past, I have a hunch that preference will be given to those who prefer the enforcement-only bill approved by the House as opposed to the comprehensive bill passed by the Senate, which includes provisions for guest workers and provides illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. According to organizers, only invited speakers will be allowed to address the congressional panel.

Outside the building, there is likely to be a circus-like atmosphere with protesters facing off and screaming at each other. There is sure to be lots of posturing and finger-pointing, and very little listening. And there's likely to be the whiff of something else. It's the thing that fuels so much of the immigration restriction movement – the cultural alarm bells that America is changing in ways that a lot of people aren't prepared to handle.

It's ugly, but at least it's honest. The movement even has its own spokesman, and he should figure prominently in the hearings.

If you can count on politicians to sometimes say dumb things, then Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, is a natural-born politician.

First, Bilbray told USA Today that President Bush ought to be investigated for not cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants. Then he warned supporters that if the United States didn't solve the illegal immigration problem, we'd all end up living in a society where our grandchildren – gasp – have to learn Spanish. Then, during a radio interview on the night of his special election, he criticized his opponent, Democrat Francine Busby, not just for suggesting that one doesn't need papers for voting, but also for what Bilbray considered the real infraction – speaking to voters who “needed an interpreter.”

Now the newest member of Congress suggests that his colleagues are deciding immigration policy based on “the Bilbray factor” – the assumption being that it was Bilbray's hard-line opposition to giving illegal immigrants a path to legalization that sent him to Washington.

Never mind that in Utah, Rep. Chris Cannon beat back a primary challenge fueled by opposition to his support for comprehensive reform, including giving illegal immigrants a shot at citizenship. During the campaign, Cannon repeatedly said to voters, “racism and xenophobia are not Republican virtues.”

Good for him. Let's hope that Cannon is correct – and that the hearings confirm that.

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me@rescam.org

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of
those who do evil, but because of those who look
on and do nothing"
~ Albert Einstein ~