Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 20:20:06 -0800 From: Allan Bowhill <abowhill@blarg.net> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Personal patches Message-ID: <20040107042006.GA65900@kosmos.my.net> In-Reply-To: <p06002028bc210b6503e5@[10.0.1.4]> References: <20040106202408.GC63867@kosmos.my.net> <20040106233751.A32387-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee> <20040107001001.GA65133@kosmos.my.net> <p06002028bc210b6503e5@[10.0.1.4]>
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On 0, Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> wrote:
:At 4:10 PM -0800 2004/01/06, Allan Bowhill wrote:
:> How so? There is nothing illegitmate, arbitrary, illegal, secret or
:> repressive about requiring fingerprints and photos of visitors who come
:> across our international borders. It is necessary record-keeping.
:
: Why not just torture them until they confess their obvious crimes?
Good idea. That Old-Europe antiterrorism knowhow is just as fresh today
as it was during the Spanish Inquisition.
:> {Personally I hope genetic fingerprinting ultimately replaces this
:> system. This method of identification has proven indispensable in
:> catching criminals who would otherwise have gone unnoticed. It works.
:
: Have you ever heard of "contamination" or "computer error"? What
:about outright abuse of the system?
:
: We computer types should understand the concept of "garbage-in,
:garbage-out", as well as the concept of "no computer is infallible".
:
Exactly. Keeping the garbage out is a legitimate goal of the system.
:> Again, why should we trust?
:
: I see. Obviously all extranationals are criminals, so why don't
:we just nuke them all out of existence and solve the problem?
But if we did that ... where would we get our slaves from?
:> No organization (or nation) with plenty to lose will base it's practices
:> on institutionalized trust. It's always institutionalized mistrust that
:> makes it possible to conduct business. Like with banks.
:
: The biggest crimes are always committed by insiders. You or I
:would be unlikely to steal thousands of dollars from a bank, and
:totally unable to steal billions of dollars from a bank, but for
:insiders it could be very easy. Indeed, for them the larger the
:numbers, the easier they are to hide.
Batting 1000. The biggest act of terrorism in the U.S. was not performed
by insiders.
However, you have a good point. Preventing domestic terrorism is another
aspect of homeland security.
: They don't freakin' speak the bloody language of the people they
:are claiming to be terrorists. They can't even properly spell the
:names of the supposed terrorists. If they think that every
:"Mohammed" is a criminal, let's see them put every "Mr. Smith" in
:jail, or every Chang in China.
:
: Let them start spelling the names properly. Let them start
:understanding the language. Let them figure out that Mohammed ibn
:Saud (or whatever) is about as common a name as "Fred Smith", and the
:name alone is far from enough information to tell you whether a
:particular person may or may not be a supposed terrorist.
:
: Or do you really want to turn this into a GATTACA, or maybe 1984?
Yeah, false positives can be embarrassing. But what the hell.
Maybe Homeland Security can be persuaded to use SpamAssassin.
--
Allan Bowhill
abowhill@blarg.net
Concept, n.:
Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than
$25,000.
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