Wednesday, 9 May 2012 Obama finally says OK TO GAY! The first US President to publicly support gay marriage. [politics] [by conga@8:01pmGMT] [+10 Good]

xgp007 said @ 8:07pm GMT on 9th May I want to believe him, I really do, but I'm still waiting for the catch...

schatten00777 said @ 8:07pm GMT on 9th May [Score:2] I think the catch was the word "personally".

xgp007 said @ 8:11pm GMT on 9th May Yeah, agreed. He says "it should be up to the states." A REAL stance would be saying "I will protect everyone's right to marry."

sanepride said @ 9:41pm GMT on 9th May All in all this isn't bad, but obviously there's a political calculus in hedging just a bit. Despite the hedging, it is worth noting that his administration has made it a point to not defend constitutional challenges to DOMA, so in a practical, backdoor sense he's already endorsed a universal right to marriage equality.

bbqkink said @ 3:21am GMT on 10th May Harry Reid made the best statement on this by any politician Reid, who voted in 1996 for the Defense of Marriage Act — which defined marriage as between a woman and a man — but opposed a 2006 effort to amend the constitution to that effect, said in a statement that his “personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman” and that the issue should be left to the states. Here is the part that is important..... But, he added, “in a civil society, I believe that people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married. The idea that allowing two loving, committed people to marry would have any impact on my life, or on my family’s life, always struck me as absurd.”

Dalillama said @ 10:00pm GMT on 9th May Exactly. This isn't taking a position, this is blowing smoke up our asses.

donnie said @ 9:57am GMT on 10th May A REAL stance would be to say that NO state should involve itself in the particulars of anyone's interpersonal relationships, period. A REAL stance would be to include romantic involvement among all other distinguishing factors between human beings which the law should not discriminate upon. Why should love, between any two people, require an appeal for assent under the law?

arctan said @ 2:45pm GMT on 10th May I would upmod this if not for the fact that I'm pretty sure you would also support Wal-Mart's constitutionally protected right as a private business to fire anyone they want for being unmarried, gay, Hispanic or in favor of unionizing.

donnie said @ 10:39pm GMT on 10th May Yes, a business ought not need to justify why it hires or fires people. That is, as they say, 'their business'.

Naruki said @ 12:31am GMT on 11th May Then they should start their own country where their evil effects on society are also their business. But in reality world, it isn't. Why don't you join us?

lalanda said @ 1:30am GMT on 11th May You sincerely must know this is wrong.

theolypse said @ 1:59am GMT on 11th May The essential prestidigitation of the Libertarian is to make the effect of instrumental bigotry vanish.

donnie said @ 2:36am GMT on 11th May [Score:2] Nonsense. I pay a premium for free range eggs, fair trade coffee, and FCS wood products - not because I am forced to, but because I think it is worth the financial sacrifice to support good behaviour. I also stand firmly in the camp that it is more valuable to make people understand why they should make better choices (and to grant the freedom to make them) than to force those choices upon them without requiring that the value of the choice be fathomed. The former encourages awareness and conscientiousness, the latter only breeds hoopleheads - and I'm sick and tired of living amongst fucking hoopleheads.

sanepride said @ 2:54am GMT on 11th May A nice aspiration. If only it were possible to 'make people understand why they should make better choices'. Either they will be so inclined or they won't. For those who are, good for them. For those who are not, well that's where regulation comes in. What you fail to take into account is the impressive power of the free market to persuade people that their better choices are also the better choices for the corporate bottom line.

donnie said @ 9:24am GMT on 11th May Goddamned savages... get what you want by applying muscle. It's driving with the brake on - inefficient and stupid. People learn, but not if they're molycoddled and herded.

rndmnmbr said @ 1:11pm GMT on 11th May And you think corporations don't get what they want by applying muscle. How sweet. That's the whole damned point of having a government, is to apply a little muscle back and balance the equation.

donnie said @ 12:23am GMT on 12th May I don't know about you, but I have rarely if ever been forced to do anything by a private company, nor have I been stolen from by one. Government, on the other hand, holds a monopoly on this behaviour.

foobar said @ 12:52am GMT on 12th May You're being hypocritical. If a Hobson's choice is fair for corporations, then it's fair for governments too.

arctan said @ 2:24am GMT on 12th May It's easy to win this argument when using a stupid and idiosyncratic definition of "stealing" that makes your assertion a tautology.

arctan said @ 2:51pm GMT on 11th May People *only* learn by being mollycoddled and herded. Not because they're "stupid" but because we all have to start from a cultural baseline and throwing that baseline out the window is scary, exhausting, unrewarding and not something most people will ever do. Racism isn't on the decline since the 1940s because every single racist in the country got targeted by a "rap session" of anti racist activists who sat down with each of them, worked through their issues, built a bridge of friendship and finally took them, blinking and crying, over the threshold and into the light. That is fucking stupid. You would need ten activists for every racist to do something like that. Even in cases where shit like that happens it's usually only as a result of the cultural background changing at the same time (the 90-year-old Klansman who magically decides to stop being racist at a time when he's found out no one will publicly applaud him for it anymore). How in the hell is that "efficient"? The only effective way to make the population as a whole less racist is to set up the laws and customs of society so that my bring racist is the default expectation. The root of all our beliefs -- killing people is bad, eating poop is gross, ganging up on black people makes you a prick -- comes from what we are taught as children. There is nothing wrong with that. That's how people are and ever have been. Expecting Pure Reason to magically enlighten people despite the massive weight of law and custom is an Ayn Rand pipe dream. (When people invoke Dr. King they should know that he thought it was a pipe dream too -- hence his choice to march on the capital of the country demanding change rather than telling everyone to go home to their own bus driver politely asking to please be allowed to sit in front.)

sanepride said @ 3:27pm GMT on 11th May Sure, this explains why we are no longer a nation shrouded by thick tobacco smoke in enclosed public spaces - just to give one very easy obvious example of why you are completely wrong.

donnie said @ 12:24am GMT on 12th May Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

sanepride said @ 1:10am GMT on 12th May Really? So tobacco consumption and public smoking has been curbed by gentle persuasion...an enlightenment of consumers deciding to do the right thing?. No. People would still be blowing smoke in their babies' faces if not for the firm hand of government intervention and regulation. This is demonstrable cause and effect.

arctan said @ 2:16am GMT on 12th May [Score:1 Informative] The worst thing about your blather about people like me not understanding math or history is your frankly insane insistence that child labor laws were unnecessary to ending child labor -- it would've happened anyway because of technological progress, you see, and the laws that can be rmpiticalkt shown to be the single obvious inflection pount in the graph just somehow made things worse.

arctan said @ 3:42am GMT on 12th May "Empirically". Stupid touchscreen keyboards.

mechanical contrivance said @ 4:00am GMT on 12th May So your phone autocorrected empirically to rmpiticalkt? Damn, what language do you have your phone set to?

foobar said @ 2:58am GMT on 11th May When you've convinced everyone that they should make those choices, we can lift the regulations. Until you do, they'll still be necessary.

theolypse said @ 3:25am GMT on 11th May The second rule of Libertarian Club is you do not talk about the opposing argument.

arctan said @ 2:37pm GMT on 11th May Yes. When I get fired from my job because someone in the chain of management is a racist bigot I will nod my head and say, "At least they were acting on their conscience and not being a hooplehead." Similarly if I am in a position where a bigot would like to fire me for bigoted reasons but is afraid of getting sued, I will go up to him and say "Come on you fucking coward! Live your beliefs! Don't be a hooplehead!" Oh wait, no I won't, because I have bills to pay and groceries to buy and actually as a minority having my life ruined just because someone is a racist is really fucking scary to me and I don't much give a shif what racists are thinking deep inside as long as they're not ruining my life. When we talk about "privilege" this is what we mean -- mainstream white guys like donnie who talk about discrimination as something abstract and theoretical and can thus say ridiculous things like "I'd rather people be free to ruin my life for no rational reason as long as they're not hoopleheads!" Well I don't know what a hooplehead is but if they're people who don't, for whatever reason, contribute to the informal blacklisting of immigrants from well paying jobs and good schools argue condemning then to life as a permanent underclass in the ghetto, I am all for their continued proliferation.

arctan said @ 2:57pm GMT on 11th May Also, just to take an example, about 0.05% of the paper products companies in the US go through the FCS chain. When it comes to "making a difference" they are making basically no difference. It's a way to make smug hipsters who can afford to pay extra feel better about being able to afford to pay extra. It has very little effect on what resources actually get consumed as a whole and if it were more widespread its utility as a marketing tool would actually decrease. Environmental issues are issues that affect us all across the board. The only way to make a dent in them is to change behavior across-the-board. This kind of green marketing crap does not do that, it just sorts consumers into people who care (because they're rich) and people who don't (because they're poor). That's in some ways worse than just not doing anything. Look at the obnoxious societal role assumed by "people who drive hybrids".

donnie said @ 12:27am GMT on 12th May It's not my fault that you lack an appreciation for nonlinear equations, nor that your concept of time betrays an unrealistic expectation of immediacy for change. Give it a century or two before you start proclaiming knowledge. Patience is a virtue.

foobar said @ 12:51am GMT on 12th May That's fine if you're a vampire, otherwise what happens in a few centuries is irrelevant.

arctan said @ 2:14am GMT on 12th May Name something that changed over the course of 500 years that didn't have some kind of actual forceful reconfiguring of law and custom within that 500 year period. I'm not saying change occurs ex nihilo solely because of Great Men -- where the original genesis of change starts is a tough question -- but law ands custom does have to change at some point. To say nothing of how the people being abused and oppressed right now probably feel about your privileged white ass telling them to defer their dream of dignity and a decent life for 200 years because of your principles born of your detached and comfortable vantage point.

arctan said @ 2:23am GMT on 12th May Also, "nonlinear equations"? Really? You can write an equation that can fit any set of data points to any pattern. There is an equation where the next value in the series 2, 2, 2, ... is 10,000. That doesn't mean that presuming that to be the equation for your data points showing the negligible effect of opt-in marketing bullshit like FAgC certification is parsimonious rather than obvious wishful thinking. The only way something like that ever will or, historically, ever has changed economic behavior on the large scale is if it inspires a law forcing everyone to abide by that standard. The whole effect of modern capitalism alienating consumers from labor through the intermediary of the market is to make it as easy as possible to vote with your wallet to do shortsighted abusive things to save a buck. Why else would we be currently going *backwards* on labor issues when we vote with our dollars tha is to globalization letting us do do legally?

donnie said @ 3:31pm GMT on 12th May I'm talking about your dismissive attitude towards FSC products because their market share is currently small and is currently changing slowly - I was suggesting that you are demonstrating a lack of appreciation for the predilection of natural and social phenomena to follow sigmoid relationships.

arctan said @ 5:37pm GMT on 12th May Please back up your pretentious math speak with actual evidence. When social trends lead to actual major changes in resource use they generally do so by inspiring actual changes in law. It's pretty hard to think of counterexamples -- indeed by contrast it's easy to think of examples where majority opinion was against something and yet that thing continued to do massive damage because of lack of will to ban it. (Take smoking in bars; the majority of people had come to dislike smoking but bars were still smoke filled polluted holes because in the absence of regulation one smoker can drive away ten nonsmokers far more easily than vice versa.)

theolypse said @ 12:28am GMT on 16th May You're such a cunt.

spazm said @ 8:12pm GMT on 9th May Well it is nice on time with regards to the elections. That aside: 'bout time!

lilmookieesquire said @ 8:35pm GMT on 9th May [Score:1 Insightful] The catch? This helps balance out the fact that he didn't sign a discrimination ban on military contractors (so there were threats to withhold election funding) and... "Opinion has shifted especially among independent voters, who back marriage rights 46 percent to 37 percent."

-_- said @ 8:17pm GMT on 9th May If he really wants to make a statement he should take up with a loud and proud white pre-op tranny.

hellboy said @ 2:36am GMT on 10th May Interracial, gay, transsexual AND poly, all in one swoop! (Swish?)

zsander said @ 5:27am GMT on 10th May Random aside: There's some debate (especially within the trans community itself) that the use of the word 'tranny' is rather insulting a la 'faggot' or 'nigger' (due to its diminutive nature, among other connotations perhaps). Anyone else heard mention of this?

arctan said @ 6:25am GMT on 10th May I have never known a transperson who was okay with "tranny" personally, and I've known some pretty laid-back/weird/offensive transpeople. "Tranny" is a pretty fundamentally ugly word (right up there with "shemale") and this is coming from people who like to use words like "dickgirl" and "cuntboy" to talk about their sexual preferences and who are okay with hearing the word "trap" from a friendly source. Christian Siriano's use of "tranny" as some sort of all-purpose pejorative ("tranny hot mess") didn't help, even though that was a weird mutation of the term that seems unique to him.

conception said @ 9:15pm GMT on 10th May I'm not sure they can bring cuntboy into popular usage any time soon.

theolypse said @ 2:01am GMT on 11th May The only real debate going on is whether transmen have any right to reclaim an obvious attacking word that has historically only been used to oppress transwomen.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:03am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Insightful] Interracial, gay, transsexual AND poly, all in one swoop! (Swish?) ...and still no love for the atheists. :-(

Chop-Logik said @ 5:14pm GMT on 10th May Atheist marriage?! *explodes*

Misanthrope said @ 12:11pm GMT on 11th May No atheists in foxhole, and we are clearly under siege.

Misanthrope said @ 12:12pm GMT on 11th May Wow, I really like this phrasing.

feldenglas said @ 8:19pm GMT on 9th May [Score:5 Insightful] Holy shit, Biden did something.

LeavemeAlone said @ 9:51pm GMT on 9th May [Score:2 Funny] Honestly, I expect that once this Administration is over, we are going to hear that Biden had a large role in policy. He's smarter than he looks.

bruceski said @ 9:58pm GMT on 9th May VP's job: distraction.

sanepride said @ 10:09pm GMT on 9th May It's already known that Biden has an outsized role in policy. He's probably Obama's closest adviser on foreign policy issues.

bbqkink said @ 3:16am GMT on 10th May Which is why when I heard that Bin Laden want to kill Obama because Biden didn't understand foreign policy, I laughed, thinking how out of touch he really was. Biden was the chairman of the foreign relations committee for years.

bbqkink said @ 8:19pm GMT on 9th May Well I got that one wrong. I thought the election in NC would put the president squarely back on the fence. It is a gutsy move politically, and I have to give him credit. My big D Democratic president stood up for civil rights, and did it without a political "mandate". Now the political side of me is much like I felt when I realized that it was going to be either Obama or Clinton as the Democratic nominee. Yea we nominated a black guy and a woman...did they have to do it now. Don't they know what can happen...this gives the crazies a better chance to win by scarring people to death. It is times like this my American side is twice as proud as my political side is scarred.

conga said @ 8:23pm GMT on 9th May [Score:1 Insightful] Maybe the election strategy here, if there is one, is to distract Romney off the topic of the economy. Get the GOP all fired up on social issues and Obama wins a little easier?

bbqkink said @ 9:03pm GMT on 9th May I can already see the Rove ad with Obama and Bidden holding hands the only question is which one has the bridal gown.

bbqkink said @ 9:28pm GMT on 9th May But like you said, now Romney is going to have to say more than "I support traditional marriage between a man and a woman". And any time you get Mitt to say "what he believes" is a good day for the democrats.

foobar said @ 8:45pm GMT on 9th May Obama still uses a BlackBerry, doesn't he. I think I've figured it out: he's actually still in 2005.

sanepride said @ 10:22pm GMT on 9th May [Score:1 Informative] I read recently that DC is the last bastion of widespread Blackberry use. I think because they can be used for secure communication.

foobar said @ 10:48pm GMT on 9th May It's actually less secure than any other device, because RIM mandates that traffic go through them. Their security is just marketing fluff.

can_lex said @ 11:52pm GMT on 9th May [Score:4 Interesting] This is not true. Government and corporations almost exclusively use their own servers for BlackBerry Messenger communications and in the process they control their own encryption keys. If you don't use your own BBM server then, and only then, does the message go through RIM, but it's still scrambled. For many this is way better security than what they get through standard text messaging which is unencrypted and interceptable by all cell carriers the message travels through. This is why so many countries got upset when RIM didn't want to install back door wiretapping for them (like the telecoms offer) and why police in the UK were vilifying RIM for rioters use of blackberries to coordinate. TLDR: Gov't and corporate BBM doesn't go through RIM, consumer BBM does but it's still better than the alternatives.

foobar said @ 12:39am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Good] Not quite. Even with your own BES, you're still going through RIM's network to the device. You do use your own encryption keys and thus in theory RIM can't snoop on your communications, but their software (even what you run on your own machine) is not available for inspection, so you don't know that it's doing what RIM claims it is. They could, and for all we know many have included a back door which transmits those keys to them. TL;DR: Gov't and corporate BlackBerry traffic does go through RIM, but you have their word they don't open it. Consumer BlackBerry traffic is as accessible to governments as SMS messages and much, much less secure than a standard email server.

sanepride said @ 1:13am GMT on 10th May Considering their ever-shrinking share of the smart-phone market, it would certainly wouldn't be to RIM's advantage to go snooping through the messages of their biggest clients.

foobar said @ 2:17am GMT on 10th May Which also makes them more vulnerable to coercion from governments, and they're already particularly vulnerable because their system requires active co-operation from carriers.

sanepride said @ 2:41am GMT on 10th May I don't get your reasoning. If there's even an inkling that their supposedly secure servers are compromised, or that they are being coerced into compromising them, there goes the bulk of their business and there goes the company. Allowing themselves to be coerced, by governments or anybody, amounts to corporate suicide.

foobar said @ 3:05am GMT on 10th May So would being punted out of a major market.

eIfish said @ 6:49pm GMT on 12th May Think back to Netscape. Did Netscape sell a shitty browser with a backdoor because the US Government told them to? Yes. Did Netscape miss-sell a shitty browser with a backdoor because the US Government told them to? No. They clearly labelled it as the insecure, 40-bit crippled edition.

foobar said @ 5:15am GMT on 10th May Also, security isn't about what people might do, it's about what they can do.

sanepride said @ 1:15am GMT on 11th May Security is also about trust. If you can't trust those expected to provide it, then it's not worth a fuck.

foobar said @ 2:07am GMT on 11th May Security is the opposite of trust. Yes, sometimes you have no choice, but securing something means reducing the amount of trust needed as much as possible.

sanepride said @ 2:56am GMT on 11th May I'm talking about trusting those who provide security.

foobar said @ 3:04am GMT on 11th May Security isn't a product you can sell or something you tick off as done. It's a process and a mindset. Should you trust your network admin? If you have to. Better to have two that don't like each other.

sanepride said @ 3:23am GMT on 11th May And yet, it is sold as a product...every day to governments, corporations, and individuals. Sure the product is often illusory, but the point is those providing the product have a vested interest in maintaining the trust of their clients.

foobar said @ 3:26am GMT on 11th May They have a vested interest in maintaining the illusions of their clients. What you're thinking of is called security theatre.

theolypse said @ 3:27am GMT on 11th May [Score:2 Underrated] It's really fun watching you two talk past each other and argue semantics as ontology.

Nihil said @ 1:44am GMT on 10th May I remember that in 2008 there were a few geek sites that talked about how one of the very first things Obama told the White House staff was "make sure I can still use my BlackBerry" and then they spent a lot of time arranging things with RIM specifically so that Obama could blow up the world from his bathroom in compliance with all security protocols.

RhesusMonkey said @ 12:01pm GMT on 10th May You really don't know what you're talking about. You think you do, but you don't. The Corporate BES server sits inside your corporate firewall, and routes all mail traffic to the NOC, which in turn route it to the phone, sure. Key exchange is done via Diffe-Hellman, which means that the NOC cannot "snoop" the encryption key when you are activating the device. Once the encryption key is sent to the device, all traffic from inside the corporate firewall to the mobile is encrypted - the NOC is nothing more than a giant VPN overlaid on the internet along with obviously a bunch of queue management and buffering. There is no "back door" for corporate material, and RIM has said this many, many times, even going to far as to coming close to shutting down service in countries because those countries "didn't believe" that this was true. but it is. Now, the NOC also does compression of data, because typically your email or IP data has a bunch of header routing info that would be plaintext along with the payload that is encrypted - the NOC compresses this head info as well, but for "lawful access" requirements (eg: when they get asked by the Feds) they can 'disable' the compression of header info for data going to a particular PIN - this enables the Feds to track where messages are originating from and where sent to, or when sent between devices. That can be helpful in (for instance) determining where the email server is physically located, and if they have appropriate jurisdiction, they can just go demand the email from the exchange server instead - much simpler than having to try to crack AES256, yes? Now, for "BBM", as well as "personal mail" (BIS), the story is totally different. Since the carrier is hosting the BIS server, then the 'RIM' portion of the delivery is only secure between the BIS and the handset, but the BIS to server portion may not be encrypted (unless you are using a secured IMAP or whatever connection), and even if it is, it uses a different key which means your mail is always at some point plaintext at the carriers site - this also means that getting "lawful access" to your email doesn't need to really involve RIM, or involve RIM having "a back door", because as long as they can show that messages from phone "A" are going to carrier server located in "B", the feds can just get the mail (or set up an intercept) at the carrier. BBM, since it relies on PIN-to-PIN messaging, all share one common encryption key through the NOC - so it is encrypted yes, but anyone can access the key, and in doing so means anyone can decrypt messages routed to a specific PIN, even RIM, and again if there are appropriate "lawful access" requirements in place, they can and will do this. But that doesn't give governments carte blanche control over message snooping. The statement that this is somehow "Mush much less secure" than standard email is laughable. Yes, you have the option of creating a secured IMAP connection between your phone and the server, but generally speaking people don't know how to do that, or don't do that. I've heard the argument before that "well I'm a huge nerd, so I know how to secure all my communications" and you know what, gold star for you there - personally I think everyone should know that, but most people are lot that computer literate. With BlackBerry, all of this computer wizardry is done out-of-the-box with no hassle for the consumer, and it prevents nude shots of them showing up on the internet - that's all that most people care about, not whether the big bad government is monitoring their daily communications. You may note that this whole kerfuffle about RIM in India there was little or not mention about the need to get Apple or Google to hand over access keys, yes? Do you know why that was? because they didn't need their consent - most people using those device do not enable security, and for those that do, it is still possible to circumvent through MITM attacks on most of the players (in the same way that you can do MITM on BIS if you are the carrier). As for the "their software isn't available for inspection", I would argue that again, you're OTL here - RIM's software gets NIST level certification and approval for use by DND etc, and that certification is only given after a quite lengthy review period, that includes code review (either directly, or indirectly through 3rd party tool results, like Coverity). One cannot just casually get EAL4+ or FIPS140-2/3 certification, and understanding the differences (eg: FIPA140-2 is entirely SW based, 140-3 is SW+HW) is kind of important if you are into that sort of tinfoil hat wearing thing.

foobar said @ 8:17pm GMT on 10th May You're almost entirely correct, but you're missing a crucial bit. Were we talking about a standard network provider, you'd be right. You can absolutely use encryption to secure communications from a network operator in the manner that RIM does. However, RIM doesn't control just the network, it also controls the end points. You aren't feeding them encrypted data and asking them to deliver it, you're handing them the plaintext and the key then asking them to encrypt it, deliver it, and then decrypt it. This is the same sort of misunderstanding that makes people think DRM is possible. You can't both give someone the plaintext and finagle a method to keep them from being able to do whatever they want with it. If they want to they will. You can get their word that they won't, but that's it. You don't know what BES or the handset is communicating to RIM, including possibly your keys. Are BlackBerries secure for the US government? Probably. Yes, they've been allowed to do a much more thorough review, but that does't mean it's safe for anyone else, and it doesn't mean the software running on US government BlackBerries is the same as those running on Indian BlackBerries or Chinese BlackBerries. Are BlackBerries secure for taking nudie pics and keeping them off the internets? No. But that's got little to do with the underlying technology. Are BlackBerries secure for non-US political dissidents and or business people working outside the US? No. Not only do you have to trust RIM, you have to trust your carrier and you ultimate mailserver. If you set up a standard, secured mailserver and use standard mail clients, you need only trust the server. Is this too much for 'regular folk'? Perhaps, but there are lots of US based services that will set it all up for you, and so long as you're not hiding from the US (or their allies), that's probably ok. But really, if you're a serious business person or political dissident, you should be able to arrange for someone to set it up properly for you. So, yes, I'm being pedantic, but that's what security is. It's only as strong as the weakest link. If you're a 'regular person' then, sure, maybe this doesn't matter much, but don't you want the Deepthroats and Daniel Ellsbergs of the world to be able to do their thing? PS: You mention in passing the issue with man in the middle attacks and certificate authorities, and while I'm sure you understand the issue I feel we should explain it for any bystanders. When you connect via https (to your bank, or Gmail, or whoever), they send your browser a key that can be used to encrypt communications so that they, and no one else can read it. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell you that you are actually communicating with the server you intend to. Any of the ISPs between you and them (or anyone on your local network) could be intercepting your connection. The then request a key from the server, and send you a different one, unencrypting and reencrypting traffic so that they get the plain text and the server and you are none the wiser. To solve this, we have a bunch of agencies that assure you a given key belongs to a given organization. They take your banks key and sign it with theirs and issue a certificate saying this key really belongs to, say, your bank. You browser has a list of these organizations and their public keys, and when you see the green lock in your browser bar, that means the key sent to you was signed by one of these certificate authorities. Unfortunately, there are a lot of certificate authorities these days. Some of them are just incompetent, and get broken into and either have their private keys stolen, or just a bunch of bogus certificates signed. Others are actually run by governments you would not really want to trust by default. Saudi Arabia, for example. The trouble is that there's not currently a way to limit the authority of these agencies. Saudi Arabia can sign a certificate for gmail.google.com and it's just as valid as the real certificate, and then use that to snoop on its subjects when they connect to google.

can_lex said @ 11:47pm GMT on 10th May For your original statement that using RIM is less secure because traffic goes through their network you have to assume that RIM is a weaker link than the telco. This is not born our by what you have written afterwards and looking at most telcos (even the in the US, remember AT&T and the NSA?) they are the weakest link in the communications chain. So, we're left looking at what additional security the handset system providers can offer. Of RIM, Apple, and Google RIM is still looking better in terms of secure communications. This will probably continue to be the case until our phones can run a secure, truly open source OS not controlled through the carriers (which means Android doesn't count).

foobar said @ 1:58am GMT on 11th May You don't have to run the telco's OS and applications when you use their network. If you were only using RIM's OS and applications, you could VPN and firewall them in, and watch for them phoning home. That they require communications go through them means you can't set up safeguards to prevent or at least detect this. iPhones are problematic in that Apple can (and has) install spyware at the OS level, but you can at least control the application level and, barring an Apple installed keylogger, ensure that communications are encrypted. RIM handsets at best can equal iPhone's security if you forgo RIM's applications and use a third party's. There's not much point using a BlackBerry in that case. Using an Android handset with a carrier issued OS image is no better, but you can replace those with an independently compiled image (such as CyanogenMod) on almost all handsets. You can also take full control of the local network stack and firewall/vpn it verifiably.

happiest_sadist said @ 5:55am GMT on 11th May Many Android devices can run Debian, which is not terribly secure by default, but can be made so (if you are savvy enough to build a Debian that will run on your device, you probably know enough to figure out how to secure it.) By "many Android devices" I mean ones that use ARM CPUs and don't have weird hardware that the Linux kernel can't handle. I have heard that there are a lot of blobs in Android that relate to proprietary hardware drivers, but afaik that's just a rumor.

eIfish said @ 6:30pm GMT on 12th May By 'Linux kernel', I hope you mean 'GPL Android kernel'? Because running Linux on your phone is possible, but will slaughter your battery life. It's technically compatible with Android now, but it has a different power-management model, and where Android would suspend the whole device to save power, Linux instead does nothing.

bbqkink said @ 9:16pm GMT on 9th May

bruceski said @ 9:32pm GMT on 9th May [Score:1 Insightful] Good news, poor writing. "The overwhelming approval, too, of the measure, which Obama had opposed, in North Carolina -- a key swing state -- heightened speculation that the president might address the issue." I'm a comma addict myself, this writer has a problem.

blibblob said @ 12:26am GMT on 10th May I hate that in the press. Excessive digressions belong in fiction or rants.

dreamingzephyr said @ 2:32am GMT on 11th May Let me help you with your comma problem: that last one should have been a semicolon.

bruceski said @ 5:27am GMT on 11th May Yeah. I started it with "as a comma addict myself, I can tell this writer has a problem" and then edited it without reparsing.

monday said @ 9:43pm GMT on 9th May [Score:5 Insightful] And the winner is:

sanepride said @ 10:18pm GMT on 9th May What do I win?

CapnSilver said @ 11:49pm GMT on 9th May Another 2 years before mandatory execution

DarkShadowRavenDragonGrrl69 said @ 9:26am GMT on 10th May sanepride's 65 already?

bltrocker said @ 3:31pm GMT on 10th May -30-

sanepride said @ 3:17pm GMT on 11th May crap.

swiggy said @ 3:35am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Funny] ...gaypublicans? republiqueers? Oh!

Ankylosaur said @ 4:00am GMT on 10th May They're called Log Cabin Republicans and they're criticizing Obama for this.

ComposerNate said @ 5:00am GMT on 10th May Republicans blame Obama for being late in fighting Republicans. Support Republicans because they're the best at standing against destructive Republican policy! Failing as equally, with more balls and whinging.

cb361 said @ 12:47pm GMT on 10th May Isn't that a bit like being a Jewish Nazi?

bbqkink said @ 12:33am GMT on 11th May I've heard of these guys for years. I have often imagined them a few hundred MEN who are trying to climb the corporate ladder trying to suck up to their boss. Then I look at all the black Republicans as people with long term memory loss.

todde said @ 5:50am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Funny] Here they come Shagging your bum Pinkpublicans on parade...

conga said @ 12:22am GMT on 10th May [Score:5 Funny] Here's the always entertaining Fox News version:

Ankylosaur said @ 1:49am GMT on 10th May Isn't that a bit like declaring war on drugs by handing out drugs to more people?

bruceski said @ 1:49am GMT on 10th May Now that's a war I can support!

Chop-Logik said @ 2:37am GMT on 10th May If they just give them away, they'll no longer be cool!

bbqkink said @ 6:00pm GMT on 10th May Shep Smith: President Obama 'Now In The 21st Century' On Gay Marriage I have said before Smith is too good of a reporter to be on Fox..this time I actually think he changed their (Fox's) whole message. Shortly after this came out the GOP took the "War on Marriage" off this webpage and all their talking heads drop it from their conversation. No they are just talking about Obama being a flipfloper..which is ...rich. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/shep-smith-obama-21st-century-gay-marriage_n_1503849.html

Misanthrope said @ 12:06pm GMT on 11th May Shep Smith is the only person on Fox I have never wanted to violently hurt.

sanepride said @ 2:48am GMT on 10th May Convicted felon gets 72,000 votes to Obama's 106,000 in West Virginia Democratic primary. Though mostly Democratic, West Virginians apparently don't like Obama. Partly because they perceive him as being 'anti-coal' in a state that still relies on coal mining, but mostly because they are racist crackers.

Anti-fuites said @ 10:58pm GMT on 10th May The dying remnants of the Dixiecrat movement. These were people who identified themselves as Democrats but only because Lincoln freed the slaves and he was a Republican.

rndmnmbr said @ 1:20pm GMT on 11th May All but a tiny handful of the Dixiecrats were courted by Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential elections, and converted almost en-masse to Republicans.

bbqkink said @ 3:08am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Funny] Obama stepped on their best political ad so far with this news. I live in Illinois and this is not on air here, curious is it running in your area?

tiemy said @ 4:38am GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Underrated] At last, a pro-gay marriage Democratic president who's even more willing to murder little Afghan kids and bomb countries around the world than the Republicans. A dream come true.

sanepride said @ 5:18am GMT on 10th May Nobody can spoil a party like ol' Leon Trotsky.

blibblob said @ 3:27pm GMT on 10th May At times you seem like the guy standing on a collapsing building going "no, no, it's all okay, at least it's not on fire!"

sanepride said @ 9:48pm GMT on 10th May Actually tiemy here is like the standing on the collapsed building going 'big deal...Afghan children are being bombed!'.

blibblob said @ 6:06am GMT on 11th May I tend not to subscribe to the idea of "whatava, bigga things elsewhere", but that analogy is lame, children getting killed is bigger than a collapsing building. Even if a couple of dudes who snuck past a few "Do Not Enter" are standing on it(since we have those sort of regulations in the western world). :-D

blibblob said @ 6:12am GMT on 11th May Add something about signs in there, possibly rephrasing the second sentence to include "there are". Or reword the entire thing in your head since I'm too drunk to do it properly without an edit button.

sanepride said @ 3:23pm GMT on 11th May My point is these things have nothing to do with each other. If this were a post about foreign policy or Afghanistan then maybe tiemy would have a valid issue. Here he's just being petulant and irrelevant. It's the same as those assholes who show up at 'Occupy' rallies with 'Free Mumia' signs.

tiemy said @ 5:29am GMT on 12th May Given that this meaningless and cowardly statement is being so widely trumpeted as a terrific reflection of Obama's political and moral character, what the man has done and what he stands for is very much relevant.

sanepride said @ 8:02pm GMT on 12th May Still waiting on that viable alternative comrade. Even Trotsky wasn't perfect, though in your ideal workers' utopia I probably wouldn't dare say that aloud.

tiemy said @ 8:29pm GMT on 12th May tiemy said @ 11:55am on 5th March [Score:1 Underrated] I've explained solutions at length before. Calling them "impractical" is just a lame way of saying you don't agree. If it were actually true, that'd mean pretty much the entirety of American history (revolutionary independence, democratization, abolitionism, women's suffrage, Populism, socialism, industrial unionism, Civil Rights) has been "impractical" and therefore should never have happened.

tiemy said @ 7:11pm GMT on 10th May [Score:-1 Troll] Or those 5 Afghan kids. Obama 2012! Obama 2012!

sanepride said @ 9:46pm GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Insightful] Yeah, that's all very interesting, except this post is about something else.

verycleanteeth said @ 9:26pm GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Underrated] How to always bitch about the President President does something you disagree with: Bitch about it. President does something you agree with: Find something else the president did. Bitch about that.

tiemy said @ 1:24am GMT on 11th May This is the same sort of non-response to political criticism we saw ad naseum from the Republican right during the Bush years. How fresh. The dismissal of war crimes as a bland "something the president did" is a nice touch, too.

theolypse said @ 1:56am GMT on 11th May [Score:1 Insightful] It's a tradition.

arctan said @ 2:29pm GMT on 11th May Lincoln authorized unlawful detainment of prisoners, attacks on civilians and kicked off some pretty damn genocidal policies against Native Americans made possible by the massive military apparatus built to fight the rebels. And yet people still seem to think he was a cool guy. Because, you know, the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments. History and historical figures are complicated and you take your triumphs where you find them. The need for angry Marxists to pronounce final judgment on leaders as "one of us" and "one of them" and develop a party line was something I disliked intensely about studying history in my college.

tiemy said @ 5:29am GMT on 12th May I've honestly no interest in a serious response to the tired Lincoln-bashing, but are you really comparing Obama's endless and predatory wars of aggression abroad + construction of a massive police state apparatus at home (to inevitably deal out mass repression and political violence against American citizens) on behalf of Wall St/big business to Lincoln's revolutionary struggle against slavery? And complex /= unknowable. The record of the last several years leaves no room for doubt about who Obama is, what he stands for, the social interests he represents. I and most Americans like me sure as fuck haven't seen any of these "triumphs."

arctan said @ 3:06pm GMT on 12th May The "revolutionary struggle against slavery" was happening at the same time as and arguably seen by many of its architects as part of the genocidal project of Westward expansion. Many of the Union generals celebrated by African Americans as liberators are the selfsame ones reviled by Native Americans as butchers, and to the generals it was all the same project -- creating and protecting a stable American imperialist state. The situation with LGBT Americans today is far less extreme than chattel slavery but a comparison in terms of strictly looking at the President and how people judge him based on specific issues can still be made (including Obama not being much more than lukewarm on gay rights publicly to start with but still getting the credit for being there when huge changes started to happen).

tiemy said @ 8:27pm GMT on 12th May Westward expansion was inseparable from the expansion of slavery; some of the worst episodes in US-Indian history were accordingly under Democratic administrations, largely carried out by Southerners. The Republican Party - especially its radical, abolitionist wing - was by far the most progressive in 19th century US politics on Indian policy (Lincoln in particular is noteworthy). Casting the civil war/emancipation as just one episode in an unbroken chain of 'racist imperialist expansion' is typical of the lazy (and often reactionary) narratives we see all the time from people who view the world exclusively through their narrow identity-tribal lenses. And props for the rare acknowledgment that gay marriage is not The Most Important Issue Ever, but by pointing this out you pretty much deflate your historical analogy. If you want to claim Lincoln's alleged lesser evils are at least partially excused by his world historic triumphs, you can't turn that on its head to suggest Obama's lesser triumphs* excuse his world historic crimes. This is why a lot of the gay rights crowd (who are not most Americans - gay marriage now ranks *18th* on a list of important issues) are unburdened by any sense of proportion or need to rationally justify their views; they either flat out don't care about or implicitly support (note how almost all of Obama's public statements on this have revolved around how gay rights are important because they strengthen the military, the ability to wage permanent war, etc.) what the Obama administration has been doing for the last three years at home and abroad. * Described as such for the sake of argument only. Despite the overwhelming corporate media hype, Obama's "evolution" is pretty much meaningless (tailing public opinion, not leading it). Just the latest (see DADT, DOMA) from a noxious and extremely cynical opportunist willing to literally say anything for political expediency and financial gain.

arctan said @ 2:24pm GMT on 11th May You know I actually agreed with Bono when he lectured people about the fact that for everything else he did he was the President who by far put more money where his mouth was when it came to funding to fight AIDS in Africa. Bill Gates and George W. Bush are two celebrities it's fashionable to hate but who did a ton for the effort to improve public health in the Third World and there you have to give the devil his due. (Much more so Gates than Bush; Bush also killed and tortured a bunch of innocents, whereas Gates made a lot of money selling software that geeks don't think is as good as other software.)

Xiph0 said @ 5:17am GMT on 10th May And only three years late.

bbqkink said @ 6:42pm GMT on 10th May It also looks like we have another "Dog on the roof" story. Romney apologizes for hurtful high school pranks If wasn't embarrassing for him there would be no apology. Mitt Romney repeatedly apologized Thursday for pranks he played in high school that may have offended or hurt other students, even though he said he does not remember them. The apologies came in a Fox News radio interview that host Brian Kilmeade said was lined up because Romney wanted to discuss a Washington Post story about the incidents. The Post story led with a vivid description of Romney repeatedly clipping the hair of a young man - presumed to be a homosexual - while other classmates pinned him to the floor, as the victim screamed for help and his eyes filled with tears. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57431851-503544/romney-apologizes-for-hurtful-high-school-pranks/

bruceski said @ 8:51pm GMT on 10th May That's... that's not a prank. If accurate, it's bullying.

bbqkink said @ 12:27am GMT on 11th May It is criminal assault. This story is growing legs. Romney denies targeting classmates for being gay The newspaper reported that in one case, Romney and several schoolmates held down classmate John Lauber and cut off his bleached blond hair after seeking him out in his dorm room at their boarding school in the wealthy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Mich. The Post said Lauber was "perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality" and that he screamed for help as Romney held him down. The paper recounted another incident in which Romney shouted "atta girl" to a different student at the all-boys' school who, years later, came out as gay. "I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school and some may have gone too far. And for that I apologize," Romney told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade during a hastily arranged radio interview. Romney said he didn't remember the Lauber incident from long ago, but didn't dispute that it happened. He stressed that he didn't know either student was gay. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h5hZOGaXunUrQtq0FY00bktlQzHA?docId=1476bb1a74254c5280a4fb9ad2c35ab8

sanepride said @ 1:22am GMT on 11th May Honestly, as much as I think of Romney as I dislike Romney for a multitude of tangible reasons, I think it's just irrelevant and dumb to go after him because he was a dick in high school.

sanepride said @ 1:23am GMT on 11th May Sorry that sentence was a bit of gibberish. Hopefully my point go across.

sanepride said @ 2:57am GMT on 11th May Damn that was gibberish too. I have been drinking this evening.

happiest_sadist said @ 5:57am GMT on 11th May I understood you fine, but then I've been drinking too.

blibblob said @ 6:32am GMT on 11th May [Score:1 Insightful] One should not post at, nor read, SE whilst sober.

bruceski said @ 5:30am GMT on 11th May Eh, if any of the bullies who tormented me in school ever run for office I won't be keeping my mouth shut. Especially the ones who chased me across town and egged me. The worst part of that was that I knew at the start of the day it was going to happen but was too scared to find help from a teacher. Terrorizing stuff.

sanepride said @ 3:36pm GMT on 11th May Hey I sympathize but it's important to remember that teenagers are not fully-formed people, emotionally or behaviorally. They often act in ways that are more influenced their social peers than by what's truly right. Sometimes this is a predictor of adult behavior, but often not. As cruel as kids can be, I don't thing they should be held responsible for their cruelties into adulthood. Even Mitt.

bruceski said @ 9:50pm GMT on 11th May And that's why I don't name them already. I've gotten one apology, and I think very highly of the guy for it.

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:06am GMT on 11th May If that is what happened, then CBS should be ashamed of titling that a "prank" as opposed to "bullying" or "assault". Liberal media bias my ass.

ComposerNate said @ 6:15am GMT on 11th May It would be odd for a sociopath to not have been a bully. I mean, why not control those weaker? Next we'll all be shocked he tortured animals. Oh wait, we already had that one, nearly.

sanepride said @ 3:54pm GMT on 11th May I think it should be noted that Romney has acknowledged and apologized for his bad teenaged behavior. I really hate to be in the position of defending him, but this is worth something.

ComposerNate said @ 5:08pm GMT on 11th May And Romney's constant chuckling let us all know whatever he is said to have done that he can't remember was all playfully harmless. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

sanepride said @ 5:52pm GMT on 11th May My point is that we don't really need to reach back to when Romney was a kid to see terrible things about him as a person. Sure, most of us didn't behave quite so badly in our youths but almost all of us certainly can recall things we did that make us ashamed and embarrassed in retrospect - things we never would have done as adults. There's plenty in Romney's adult and political lives that bear fair scrutiny - including the terrible Seamus incident.

ComposerNate said @ 6:00pm GMT on 11th May Yes, which is why this story deserves no more than the two days of conversation it gets, adding perspective to the nominee's character and allowing an opening to further reflection on his more recent lack of empathy. It also is an easy divide politically during this civil rights movement; easily believable about Romney to the point of ready dismissal, it would be difficult and shocking to hear the same allegations about Obama.

ComposerNate said @ 8:14pm GMT on 11th May Also reminds the effects of religious brainwashing on young hormonal men.

sanepride said @ 11:08pm GMT on 11th May As I recall from high school young hormonal men can be predatory assholes regardless of religious brainwashing.

ComposerNate said @ 9:29pm GMT on 12th May Cultural religious brainwashing. My understanding is America is leading the world in school bullying, by far, awash in a culture of guns and Jesus and social Darwinism.

maryyugo said @ 9:56pm GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Funny] hmmm... 69 comments.

granitewitch said @ 7:16pm GMT on 13th May In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative: Dear Dr. Laura: ... Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them. 1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians? 2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? 3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense. 4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them? 5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it? 6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination? 7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here? 8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die? 9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves? 10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14) I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. Your adoring fan. James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia (It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian.)

Naruki said @ 12:56am GMT on 14th May Should probably remove the name James M. Kauffman, since he didn't write it and he has been pestered ever since some asshole put his name on it. But it's still good, 12 years later.

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