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Comment: Re:Why is C# .Net used for medical devices? (Score 1) 61

by melikamp (#46284849) Attached to: Healthcare Organizations Under Siege From Cyberattacks, Study Says

From time to time I see posts for medical device coding jobs on craigslist and the like. Quite commonly they require one to have experience with C# .Net. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Heart disease runs in my family. If I get a pacemaker, is it going to be running Microsoft Windows?

This is yet another symptom of a very common disease: enter computers, and all of the sudden medical professionals simply ignore patient privacy and security. May be it's for the lack of understanding on the part of individual doctors, but then where are their governing bodies looking? They are selling us out. They must be corrupt three times over.

Last time I went to a doctor for a regular checkup, I almost asked her: are my responses private? [Yes, I assume] Then why the bloody hell are you typing them into a Windoze? You are sharing them with Microsoft and its affiliates as you are typing them in front of me, so where do they go when I am not looking? I didn't confront her, though, opting instead to be very discrete about my medical condition.

Comment: Re:Elephant in the room (Score 1) 325

by melikamp (#46276347) Attached to: N. Korea Could Face Prosecution For 'Crimes Against Humanity'

And i bet that that don't even qualifies as the tip of the iceberg.

I agree completely. We get closer to the iceberg if we consider the invasion and the ongoing occupation of Iraq, which is a war of aggression and a war crime, and carries with it a tremendous toll on the civilian population.

If UN is going to police the world, they should start with interstate conflicts, and the rogue state number one, instead of meddling with the internal affairs of a state so week that it will collapse on it own without humanitarian help.

Comment: paste this to cut the BETA (Score 4, Informative) 77

by melikamp (#46192899) Attached to: Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht's Next Court Date Set For November

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)




Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories



Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))

Comment: Re:hero (Score 4, Insightful) 388

by melikamp (#46112353) Attached to: Edward Snowden and the Death of Nuance

Snowden has demonstrated that a traitor can be a hero

No, he demonstrated that a hero will be called a traitor by the actual traitors he exposed.

traitor (noun) One who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country.

When did he betray USA? When he exposed massive surveillance, which is almost certainly unconstitutional? When he exposed the fact that NSA is operating without any practical oversight? Or the fact that most (if not all) of the Congress has no right to know whether they are being spied on? Or the fact that the highest NSA officials lied, and continue to lie under oath? He broke a low, granted. That makes him a criminal, not automatically a traitor. And in this instance, it also makes him a hero, since the law he broke is oppressive and should have never been on the books.

Comment: Re:Civil Vigilante (Score 1) 822

by melikamp (#46082423) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve?

We need to be careful not to praise the acts only because the results were good.

In this case, however, the laws he broke are oppressive: something you forgot to mention. The reason he cannot return is because USA does not have sufficient whistle-blowing protections. Should a citizen be able to report an illegal activity and a gross abuse of power, regardless of the classification of relevant documents? In a democratic society, it should be the citizen's duty, and an activity protected by the law. So we need to be careful to give Snowden praise he deserves for bringing our attention both to the illegal activities, and to the sad state of our legal system.

Comment: Re:How about jail for copyright enforcers? (Score 1) 263

by melikamp (#46046971) Attached to: Cameron's IP Advisor: Throw Persistent Copyright Infringers In Jail

Thanks! Indeed, it's almost word for word:






But unlike UDHR, this is merely lip service. They give it with one hand, and with the other hand they take it away completely. If a state gives out exclusive distribution rights, then third parties have the right to censor any kind of sharing (3a). Anything but pure flattery can be construed as disrespecting someone's reputation (3a). Anything at all can and have been construed as threatening national security: in particular, any kind of political speech (3b). Sadly, this document does nothing to protect the right to freedom of expression.

Comment: How about jail for copyright enforcers? (Score 5, Funny) 263

by melikamp (#46046333) Attached to: Cameron's IP Advisor: Throw Persistent Copyright Infringers In Jail

UDHR article 19:


Since enforcing copyright against people who share information online non-commercially is clearly a violation of a human right according to UDHR, to which UK is a signatory, how about throwing copyright enforcers in jail instead? How long is the public going to put up with this oppression?

Comment: Re:Stand their ground (Score 1) 247

by melikamp (#45982349) Attached to: Wikimedia Community Debates H.264 Support On Wikipedia Sites.
Please, stop spreading the myth of "standard codec" and "quality". Anything will be a standard if it is crammed down the people's throats. As for quality, please. All Web video is shit. Talking about the differences in "quality" between mp4, theora, and webm is like talking about the shades of dung. 5 minute videos of cats playing piano and girls masturbating produce exactly the same effect, no matter the codec. On a smartphone screen too. Give me a break. Feeding the patent mafia, who are basically censoring Wikipedia for millions of users, is a much bigger issue than any subjective difference in video quality. Think it through. Thanks to patents, copyrights, and non-free software, many spy-phone users can't see the videos at all, and you keep talking about a marginal improvement in "quality"?

Comment: Re:Tracking? (Score 1) 156

by melikamp (#45967327) Attached to: Phil Zimmerman Launching Secure "Blackphone"
If this device is fully free and open, then it can obviously spoof every one of its IDs, and provide a strong defense against location tracking (although not perfect, if one wants to jump from tower to tower while keeping the IP connection intact). The problem, as you can see, is not just with the device, but with the cellular providers, who forbid anonymous users. So if this phone can use the cellular network in USA, then it automatically will have to be non-free, and the whole thing is a scam. In particular, their claims of privacy and security would be straight-up lies. If it does not, however, use the towers (wifi only), then it has a chance of being true to its claimed purpose.
