Full Details of My Attempted Entrapment For Teaching Polygraph Countermeasures 465
George Maschke writes "In May of this year, I was the target of an attempted entrapment, evidently in connection with material support for terrorism. Marisa Taylor of McClatchy reported briefly on this in August. I've now published a full public accounting, including the raw source of the e-mails received and the IP addresses involved. Comments from Slashdot readers more technically savvy than I are welcome."
We need a workers government (Score:3, Funny)
For a Soviet America! Build a revolutionary workers party with the program of Lenin and Trotsky!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The emerging dialectic has left Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, and Maoist revolution on the ash heap of history. Only Democratic Capitalism has delivered on the promises of the communist party which has seen its own promises go unfulfilled and proven to be empty for a century! Throw off your chains of thought, brother, and join us in the present! Down with Lenin! Down with Trotsky! Down with Stalin! Down with Mao! Long live free enterprise! Long live opportunity! And yes, long live the true union
Re:Ha ha ha (Score:5, Interesting)
Fah. I was only 14 when I did a comparative analysis of communism and capitalism. Having some background in electronics theory and associated systems approach, I was able to demonstrate that communism is always doomed, because it is not a stable economic system. All stable systems must have both positive and negative feedback loops. (The screech when you put a microphone too close to a speaker is one example of a runaway system, that finally blows something if not corrected.) The classic aphorism of communism is "too each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities". This is essentially two uncoupled, undamped systems with unlimited response - some people have "unlimited needs" and work the system; other people will be worked to death.
I later discovered that in the real world, this lack of feedback in the economic system is dealt with in two ways - feedback through the political system (corruption of various sorts, political appointments, etc.), and through the black market - a hidden ad hoc capitalist mechanism, often with a political component (bribing the officials).
So regardless of capitalism, communism is a dead end, and makes no mathematical, much less economic, sense. There is a kind of 'communism of the rich' which is analogous to what techies do with open source, and what Star Trek assumed due to the Replicator technology. It's basically, "to each according to his needs, there's plenty to go around."
While capitalism has its issues, it is a dynamic complex adaptive system where the excesses can be curbed by _reasonable_ regulation. The complaints that Marx had back in the 1800s were in response to the excesses of what was basically a post-feudal era where companies were generally owned by one, or a small set, of people with zero requirement to take into account any public opinion, and could act as feudal barons. The rise of incorporation has moved capitalism increasingly toward an economically democratic model, where every company must take into account the political and economic environment.
In practice, no communist government has resulted in 'free people', except in the sense (as an old Soviet joke goes), "we are free - to work ourselves to death"
We the people (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly a 14yo's opinions on comparative politics are about as insightful and original as a 14yo's opinions on birth control, it's mostly second hand knowledge that (like the Marxist slogan above) often bears little resemblance to the real world. However you do seem to have worked out that the "free market" is actually a set of rules that form a trading system for "we the people" (eg: property law), not some magical hand righting wrongs, just a different set of rules to what we use. The system we use says that the "free" in "free market" means anyone can participate in that market, what's not so clear is whether anyone is free NOT to participate. The alcohol market is a trivial example of a non-free market since some sections of the population are prohibited from buying it, and the rest are prohibited from selling it to them.
Don't believe everything people tell you about Marx, Rand, Orwell, et al, go and read what they have to say. There's also a metric shitload of stuff on youtube from modern writers such as Hitchens, Vidal, Pinker, Feynman, Sagan, et al. I particularly like Pinker's latest stuff about the decline of violence over the last 1000yrs and I personally think the "Stanford prison experiments" will be seen as one of (if not The) most important insight into human nature to come out of the 20th century.
Don't let "being wrong" stop you from thinking, the more angles you look at, the more picture's the kaleidoscope of the real world shows you. - refer to sig.
Re:We the people (Score:4, Informative)
I think I'm a bit insulted, or else you misunderstood me. For that term paper (9th grade) I read Marx, Engels, and others. In fact I got in a lot of trouble for doing so, since this was back in the cold war era - the teacher flunked me for the paper and for the term, and screamed at me for an hour after school. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed and I was put in advanced placement classes after that. My "thing" has always been Systems Science in various forms, including most required classes for an MS in SS. I have continued to study this area, and in fact was on track to get the PhD in Economics, concentrating my research on the complex adaptive systems approach to economics. I'm tempted to respond with an expletive here, but I resist. "Central Planning" is really just a hack to try to make something work, which (as we have seen so many times it's a wonder anyone even bothers any more) is doomed to failure.
(I'm amused by the fact that most large corporations operate internally via a central planning model, which is partly why they are so frustrating to work in. It will be interesting to see how the new post-capitalist networks of doers who just call each other up and assemble a structure-of-the-moment to accomplish a goal will compare.)
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". A succinct, compassionate, and efficient "prime directive" for any "we the people" if you ask me
is an example of the classic liberal confusion of wishes (or goals, if you prefer) with facts. Such a goal can only be reached as an outcome of a system that successfully promotes it, and communism doesn't - the lack of feedback again means it is irrevocably broken.
A free enterprise system does a much better job of meeting those two criteria on a dynamic, stable basis. For instance, as a generality "from each according to his ability" is determined in a free enterprise system as an increasing cost factor as the "from" gets close to the maximum that person is willing to provide, where (as I noted), creating an internally damped feedback loop. In other words, as the demand for my services goes up, I charge more. Under the communist model there is no way to do that except by political means - i.e. management decides what your "ability" is, regardless of your opinion - again, no feedback loop. The quota must be met even if it kills you.
Your example of China is misdirected. It was, in fact, more definitively WalMart and other companies who brought so many people into the global middle class - by some estimates 100 million people by WalMart alone. And this all happened _after_ China began to move away from the communist ideal and started to allow and encourage private enterprise. Today China is only communist in the sense that it is a police state that maintains itself on persistent corruption and its use of power to achieve wealth (a sure sign of a non-capitalist system). From what I've seen, central plannning in China is presently restricted to infrastructure and theft by the powers that be. But I will accept the _possibility_ that what central planning that is done in China today might be a necessary transitional phase while the Chinese gradually learn how to behave in a society of mutual trust and modern "middle class" economic values.
As for being wrong, au contraire. The math on my side is well established and applies equally well to complex adaptive systems ranging from economies to forests. The 100+ years of the eventual failure of all attempts at communism - see Venezuela for a recent example also speaks to the issue.
As an aside, I'm presently reading an SF novel "Accellerando" [wikipedia.org] by Charles Stross, (available as a free e-book) which proposes a post-capitalist, post-communist economic system based on the freedome of information. He argues that with the vast availability of almost all information at a moment's notice, all economic systems based on scarcity and rationing may become obsolete.
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I think I'm a bit insulted, or else you misunderstood me. For that term paper (9th grade) I read Marx, Engels, and others.
I believe you may have read the word 'Marx,' but you show no hint in your posts that you have any understanding of anything he wrote. That's what might be confusing people.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah, it reminds me when I was in 8th grade and I mathematically proved the existence of alien life by means of a brilliant modification to Drake's equations, but then Aliens came and convinced me to not let the world know, since the world was not ready. Anal probes might have been involved in the process.
Re:We the people (Score:5, Informative)
The opening line of Karl Mark's book...
It's an excerpt from Marx' Critique of the Gotha Programme. [marxists.org]
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then [sic] can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! [Emphasis added]
The point being that To each according to his contribution [wikipedia.org] was necessarily to be the appropriate principle until that higher phase be accomplished! I.e. simply the elimination of exploitation (in the technical Marxist sense of that word). As you say, don't believe everything people tell you about Marx and, I would add, be careful about taking these slogans out of context. Our friend here seems especially to have had his recall of reading of Kapital (or was it Grundrisse?) coloured by popular misconception.
The system we use says that the "free" in "free market" means anyone can participate ...
Well ... that 'free' means many things to many people. I certainly agree that it implies a freedom of anyone to participate free from qualification (apart from having the requisite wealth). IMO it requires additionally (or perhaps essentially) that the buyer and seller are free to agree between themselves on the price. Thus the market for theatre tickets is a free market only when it involves a scalper.
What you say about China is insightful and often forgotten. Not that I'd want to live under their system mind ...
Re:We the people (Score:4, Interesting)
The Sanford Prison Experiment is a poster child for what was wrong with scientific psychology in most of the last century. Philip Zimbardo, knowingly or unknowingly, designed and implemented the experiment in such a way that he got exactly the results he wanted. The wiki [wikipedia.org] lists some of the deficiencies:
Zimbardo found it impossible to keep traditional scientific controls in place. He was unable to remain a neutral observer, since he influenced the direction of the experiment as the prison's superintendent. Conclusions and observations drawn by the experimenters were largely subjective and anecdotal, and the experiment would be difficult for other researchers to reproduce.
Also look at how ethics committees changed their guidelines as a response to that experiment.
Re:Ha ha ha (Score:5, Informative)
No. Capitalism has a host of feedback mechanisms - supply and demand being the archetypical one. Like any good complex adaptive system, when a new 'species' (for example a new technology and resulting new market) appears, the other entities in the system dynamically adapt. This is very similar to the evolutionary ecosystems model. Political feedback, to my mind, should mainly be of the sort that prevents fish that are too big from swimming up small creeks and blocking water flow. (I know that's a really obscure analogy, but I like it.
A major distortion that exists presently is what I would consider incorrect government policies that encourage near-monopolies and effective monopolies. In the US, anti-trust laws are directed primarily at maintaining two things: preventing unfair advantage of a company's monopoly position, and maintaining a fiction of competition among two to four dominant players.
If I had my druthers, I would prevent any company with more than 10% of a market to buy or take control of any other market participant for any reason.
From my own studies of free enterprise as a CAS, it appears to me that if any company controls more than perhaps 20% of a market, or if fewer than 10 or so companies constitute a large percentage of a market, they have effectively too much monopoly power. I have not done the research in detail - I was prepared to work on the PhD in Economics and this was going to be my area of research, but I did not pursue it at that time, so these are 'back of the envelope' numbers.
Nevertheless, it's instructive to use ecosystems as an analogy. A climax forest may have only a dozen or so tree species but it is very rare for it to have as few as four or five. Aspen trees are interesting - a particular aspen grove may in fact be a single genetic individual. But the environment varies enough that this grove can not take over 100 square miles. This is because the local environment changes constantly, so the area next to the Aspen grove may be better for maple, or fir, or scrub grassland.
So to maintain the maximum diversity, and dynamic adaptability and efficiency, the role of government regulation is absolutely _not_ to provide a single market. (I.e., do _not_ normalize the laws across all jurisdictions.) That made sense when the economies of scale truly applied - it took a lot of money to build a steel mill. But economies of scale now are primarily tools of capitalist domination. If a large company is truly more competive than small companies, then this should be the case across many jurisdictions with differing local rules. Normalizing the rules across jurisdictions is unfairly (IMHO) handicapping smaller businesses, which as it happens often have lower unit costs these days than large companies. Case in point - labor productivity at a MacDonald's franchise is substantially _lower_ than at the old mom and pop hamburger joint - this is due to two things - MacDonald's already made your burger so it's faster, and every MacDonald's burger is the same - no guessing. But both of those are obsolete criteria in today's world of freely available information.
At one time, the number of jurisdictions was large, and the information flow between them was relatively slow, so this was not such a large problem. But now we are close to having a single global economic model. This puts the entire economic system at constant risk - e.g. "Too big to fail". This idea is in itself a condemnation of the legal structure we have allowed to develop. And now with the availability of incredibly fast means to rationalize markets, that legal structure is, oddly enough, a bad idea. Today we need more diverse markets, not more similar markets. And that is where the political factor comes in. Or, as I've said to many of my friends, "All decisions should be made as locally as feasible," - whether economic or political.
Re:what about (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you think you're in any way relevant just because you amass money?
If you're looking for someone with a misplaced feeling of entitlement, look for a mirror.
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In the end, only the leftovers, the seemingly superfluous, tedious people, involved in regu
You seem to have it wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Idiots who adopted the leaf as a form of currency and then set about preventing inflation by burning down the forests around them.
The only group that was exiled inappropriately were the janitors, Telephone sanitizers to be specific..
Also the leftovers did not form a civilization they went feral breeding with the native cavemen and leaving no trace in the fossil record of their base civilization and ultimately corrupting the program of the biocomputer Earth.
Go through the source material more than once before you make claims about the political meanings of science fiction.
Re: what about (Score:5, Informative)
My reply to both you and the parent is that IMHO most people (including Greenspan, and all of Wall Street) misinterpret Rand. If you recall, the protagonists in each of her books is a builder, not a financier. They were virulently opposed to those who used manipulation of the economic and political system for their own gains. Her books were really about the importance of the creative and technical versus the political.
I think it was Nietzche ("Man and Superman"?) who proposed the dichotomy between masters and slaves. I have always felt that he was wrong, that while those two groups may exist, there is a third group, the technical/creative, who does not want to be master and refuses to be slave.
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They've probably made a pretty good effort at working out what a recent immigrant from soviet Russia living on US welfare thought was wrong with the USA.
I really don't get this Rand thing. Maybe it's because some see it as a kind of home grown "wisdom" and see everything else as tainted by some form of education.
Re: what about (Score:5, Insightful)
The romance of the creator having to deal with the political realities. In our own minds, we are all Mozart, Tesla, and John Galt. :)
Re: what about (Score:5, Insightful)
And the big railroad barons of the second half of the 19th century never would have been that big without the U.S. government financing and pre-planning the big railroad tracks and protecting the building sites with the cavalry. So much for Ayn Rand's preposition of Atlas Shrugged. The archetypes of Dagny Taggart were free-riding on government subsidaries.
Re: what about (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a useful point - through most of US, if not global, history, there has been the thread of the creative, explorer, or pioneer who probably has support from investors, governments, other parties, etc. Columbus is perhaps an archetypical example - he spent something like 10 years trying to get various monarchs (Portugal, Spain, England, maybe even Italy) to fund his expedition to go West to find the East. (He was rejected several times by Isabella and Ferdinand because their advisers pointed out that his estimate of the diameter of the Earth was about 1/2 what the experts thought - they were in fact correct!) More recently, the American pioneers, and the American railroads, depended on government land grants.
Nevertheless there is a difference. All of your examples fit the mold of people who, given or finding an advantage, ran with it and created something new, or had a dream and put together the resources to make it happen. Without Columbus, Spain would not have become such a major economic and political power - it had just essentially given up rights to most of Africa and the South Atlantic to the Portuguese after a military defeat. In fact, Ferdinand and Isabella were acting as VCs, with the expectation that they would never see Columbus again, but their situation was bad enough that it was worth trying this low-cost fling. It worked out pretty well (except arguably for the folks who lived here already...)
Lots of other people had fathers who taught mathematics; lots of people have had all the right tools but never did anything with them. Heck, I'm a pretty good example - back in 1981 I came up with the idea of 3D printing (I worked in a group that built flatbed printers), and I even assembled some of the components I needed to build a prototype. But I never carried through with it. Maybe that was partly luck, and/or going a different direction, or whatever - but the fact remains that I could have created the 3D printing market 30 years ago.
IMHO Obama's assertion that "you didn't build that" was IMHO a combination of economic illiteracy, stupidity, socialist idealism, and political "big lie" technique. Sure, every "great man" has a variety of supports that made it possible. But that does not counter the principle. Taken to its extreme, you can say that Columbus was no more important than the guy who baked his breakfast the morning he left Palos de la Frontera.
Re: what about (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO Obama's assertion that "you didn't build that" was IMHO a combination of economic illiteracy, stupidity, socialist idealism, and political "big lie" technique.
You make a rational, reasoned argument, then sign off with that straw man? I'm guessing you're not even taking it out of context like the GOP tried to.
The "you didn't build that" was *directly* related to the infrastructure of an entire society that enables advancement, and the idea that you contribute back to that society, in the form of jobs (like Apple doesn't), or taxes (like Apple doesn't).
I'm not saying Obama didn't fail miserably to express the sentiment clearly, but there's no "great man" that doesn't owe anything to anyone.
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Nonsense. An American who doesn't like the tax rules in America would find it trivially easy to migrate to another country with different rules. You can't credibly choose to abide in a country, create a company in that country and use the infrastructure of that country then claim it is theft when you are asked to pay the taxes that they require.
Th
Re: what about (Score:5, Insightful)
My standard answer on Atlas Shrugged is the end of Douglas Adams' second Hitchhiker novel (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe), where Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect meet the people from Golgafrincham. Those people are the leftovers when the elite on Golgafrincham turned their planet into an Randian paradise, with the econonomical elite ruling without bounds, and an army of slave like serfs are working for them.
In the end, only the leftovers, the seemingly superfluous, tedious people, involved in regulations, law enforcement and taxing, the people Dent and Prefect met, survive, and are able to found a new civilisation on Earth, while the Randian Golgafrincham dies out due to an infection.
Just remember one thing about Atlas Shrugged: As mentioned in the preface, it's not about men as they are, it's men as they should be. We don't have any morality and ethics in business or government: In other words, instead of a Midas Mulligan we have a Jamie Dimon, instead of a John Galt we have John Boehner, instead of a Hugh Akston we have Twitter....
Re: (Score:3)
Instead we have to deal with reality. And reality is everything that affects us. We are not spheric cows, and we don't live in a vacuum. And you don't get far in reality by trying to breed milk providing balls.
Re: what about (Score:5, Insightful)
Just remember one thing about Atlas Shrugged: As mentioned in the preface, it's not about men as they are, it's men as they should be.
Interesting -- seems like under the premise "men as they should be", everything from pure socialism to pure laissez-faire, or from pure anarchy to pure autarchy, would work. Any system works if the actors are perfectly informed and benevolent.
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there are many many things we can learn from the ideologies that are as relevant as ever
Such as killing a hundred million people should be bad?
Of course rethuglicans and conservatards will whine but with any luck their days are numbered and stuck in the 20th century
Who's the conservative? The person trying to create an adventurous 21th century economic system or the person still fighting 19th century problems that went away a century ago?
Re:We need a workers government (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing hundred million people was not a part of ideologies. You should learn to distinguish between interfaces and implementations.
How do you plan to elminate private property without murdering the millions who want to keep theirs?
Communism can only be imposed by force and mass murder, because it's so completely incompatible with human nature.
Re:We need a workers government (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We need a workers government (Score:5, Insightful)
so far, there have been no implementations of the Communist ideology *without* suppression of free people to the extreme of mass murdering the dissenters.
Re:We need a workers government (Score:4, Insightful)
Granted, there haven't been any examples of far-right countries that have done spectacularly better on that front, either. The US has the world's highest incarceration rate [wikipedia.org]; we've become quite good at allowing dissent "in theory" while rounding up dissenters from the system on globally unprecedented scales, to create a permanent gulag class (often used as forced labor for the profits of the private prison industry).
It's an interesting dichotomy: the US has some of the world's best free speech protections "in theory," but the stranglehold of megacorporate interests over, e.g., all widespread media outlets assures that speech representing the interests of the working class is entirely lacking in the "public discourse" of the nation. When people try to speak more effectively proportional to their numbers rather than their wealth, e.g. Occupy protests, they are gassed and beaten and rounded up into jails (typically for the maximum time they can be held for "processing" without charges), and the corporate media does its job of letting multimillionaire white males explain to us why those dirty hippies deserved what they got.
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You should learn to distinguish between interfaces and implementations.
Don't worry, I have. I just have copious evidence that Communism is an interface that should never be implemented at the national or global level.
Re:We need a workers government (Score:4, Insightful)
Get with the times. Don't you know that if you're poor it's your own damn fault? And if you don't have bread, why not eat cake?
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"adventurous 21th century economic system"
What a scummy way to say "fuck minorities and the poor"
Or as H.S.Thompson would paraphrase Nixon in 'Where the Buffalo Roam': "The doomed....I hate the doomed"
But I agree with you.
Its sink or swim for ALL of us on this ship of fools. If anyone thinks that other people deserve to be tossed off of the boat into the abyss, they are free to volunteer themselves to that cause. As for the rest of us, lets all coexist as golden rulers. And that starts with helping each other. Even the doomed. Even Nixon.
Re:We need a workers government (Score:5, Insightful)
Except under capitalism minorities and the poor are more empowered than ever.
In America even the poor have cell phones and cars. What communist country can say the same thing? Access to food is so trivial here, yet in those places they'd be lucky if they have more than one meal in a given day.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In Cuba, even the poor have access to free medical care good enough to ensure that average life expectancy about equal to the longevity of people in the USA. And infant mortality is slightly lower than in the US. Not everyone has a car --- it's a small poor country --- but with ride sharing and buses it's possible to get around. I would gladly trade my cell phone for that.
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Also, sheep generally have trivial access to abundant food and cows even have computerized milking machines, with laser range-finders and all sorts of entertaining, stress-reducing and comforting gadgets. And your point is?
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I guess you didn't realize that parents on food stamps often have to skip meals so their kids can eat. And that we just reduced benefits for recipients again.
Oddly enough, cellphones and cars are easier to get than food for the poor.
Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're living in the 40s, that means avoid learning about integration.
In the 90s? avoid learning about marriage equality.
Living in 2013? Don't learn about avoiding government interrogation.
Living in 2015? Don't even THINK about avoiding surveillance.
antipolygraph.org (Score:2)
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Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Funny)
Derivatives are fine, though.
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Interesting)
We would never have had PGP or encryption research outside government labs if everyone followed such rules.
The way I see it, no one would be using encryption nowadays if Obama managed to be president in the nineties.
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The way I see it, no one would be using encryption nowadays if Obama managed to be president in the nineties.
Not before 1997, according to the age rules in the constitution [wikipedia.org]. Since Obama was born in August 1961, this limits his eligibility for presidency to August 1996 onwards, which effectively means January 1997 onwards due to the schedule of presidencies in the US.
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Funny)
The way I see it, no one would be using encryption nowadays if Obama managed to be president in the nineties.
Not before 1997, according to the age rules in the constitution [wikipedia.org]. Since Obama was born in August 1961, this limits his eligibility for presidency to August 1996 onwards, which effectively means January 1997 onwards due to the schedule of presidencies in the US.
I know I'm going to some sort of hell for trolls for posting this, but... couldn't he have just faked up his birth certificate with an earlier date on it?
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Informative)
We would never have had PGP or encryption research outside government labs if everyone followed such rules.
The way I see it, no one would be using encryption nowadays if Obama managed to be president in the nineties.
Were you around in the nineties? That was when Clinton used CALEA to force telecoms to build the exact infrastructure that was exploited after 9/11 by Bush, and later Obama. That was when Clinton pushed the ultimately doomed "Clipper Chip", with all other strong encryption to be criminalized. Turns out, something as ham-handed as Clipper turned out to be un-necessary, since the NSA was just able to (apparently) subvert certification authorities and cripple hardware-based random number generators.
If Clinton had allowed a secure digital infrastructure to be built in the first place, none of the current shenanigans would have been possible, or at least would have been way harder.
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CALEA (1994) was the bargain for foregoing the Clipper Chip (1993).
That's no defense of CALEA. But it's worthwhile to get the history correct, because the politicians and officials who compromised in 1994 are going to want to know what they're going to get if you discard CALEA. Of course, it's unlikely CALEA is going anywhere.
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Were you around in the nineties? That was when Clinton used CALEA to force telecoms to build the exact infrastructure that was exploited after 9/11 by Bush, and later Obama."
The lesson is clear: even if the current administration pushes something through while promising not to abuse it, that has absolutely no bearing on whether someone else will, later.
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I doubt Phil Zimmerman cared about the political environment.
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, and the people who first broke such rules nearly went to prison. That was your parent poster's point. If you want to be safe, kowtow to the powers that be like the obseqious peon they want you to be.
Or, you know, fuck 'em with a rusty shiv.
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Can siblings marry now?
Incest is unethical because of the risk of inbreeding; a marriage between siblings with no biological children hurts nobody.
What about people who are already married?
Why not? Brazil ruled that a triad had a constitutional right to marry.
Children?
They aren't able to form binding contracts.
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Incest is unethical because of the risk of inbreeding; a marriage between siblings with no biological children hurts nobody.
With the same argument you could forbid sexual intercourse between a male and a female, where the sum of their ages is above 80 years. The risk of trisomia-21 is quite high in this constellation. Higher than the risk of birth defects due to inbreeding.
The risk of inbreeding was much higher in tribal societies, because they were on the verge of inbreeding anyway because of their small numbers. Today, our parents were choosing each other literally between millions of potential candidates. The genetic diversity between two New Yorkian siblings is often larger than that of two random members of one of the remaining native tribes - the siblings share 25% of their genetic code, native tribes often 40% and more.
Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if they're both consenting adults, why the fuck not?
Really, what difference could it possibly make to you if they did or didn't? Is your life affected in any possible way?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
2/10, far too obvious.
Go back to GameFAQs, or maybe Digg if you're feeling confident. You're years away from being ready to troll here.
Already Slashdotted (Score:3)
Well, maybe later.
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Similar Concerns (Score:3)
I'm in a similar situation as the submitter, but I mostly just tell people how to lie to their wives (partners, etc)
I often get emails from Princes, Damsels-in-distress, penis pill pushers, and a plethora of other fake and scammy looking stuff.
I'm pretty sure it's my wife, because she can't spell worth a shit.
Is the submitter *spoken-for* ? It could just be the partner, messin' with him. I believe I can be of help.
cheers,
As said Einstein... (Score:2)
"Two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity. (And I'm not sure about the Universe)".
From now on, these "lectures" will be taught world wide, except by USA. Or do you think the remaining ones will just sit and wait for the feds knock their door?
A little ham fisted to be pros. (Score:3, Informative)
I have no special expertise, but this seems a little ham fisted to be agents of the state, don't you think? Seems more likely they'd go with tried and true techniques of human intelligence. I'd beware of any attractive women suddenly taking an interest, or people who appear to have money who want to support the cause, etc. And if you don't already, get a good lawyer and vet everything through him/her. Also, if the authorities do come knocking, make sure you know how to handle the situation so you don't incriminate yourself or make the situation worse (talk to your lawyer, but it amounts to keep your cool and your mouth shut).
Re: (Score:3)
Not really. 'The State' is made up of many agents, some much smarter than others. It could easily be someone bucking for a promotion trying to work out of his league to prove his value.
Just like with drug stings. I have read about well done stings and I have had obvious cops trying to look like teenagers ask me in a parking lot "Would you like to purchase some marijuana?".
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Despite the fact that most of the world knows this, there's still one country that thinks such things can be admissible in court.
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:5, Interesting)
"Despite the fact that most of the world knows this, there's still one country that thinks such things can be admissible in court."
You don't mean the U.S., do you? Because to the best of my knowledge no jurisdiction in the U.S. allows polygraphs to be used as evidence against a defendant, without their consent. And they'd be stupid to consent.
However, a positive polygraph result can be used in your favor, *IF* the judge will allow it.
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:5, Insightful)
You might as well claim that states allow the reading of chicken entrails as evidence in court under Daubert, which would, of course, be utter nonsense. Daubert just says that it is up to the judge to determine whether evidence is admissible. In fact, that's not even what Daubert actually decided; Congress adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence which gave judges this power, and Daubert just ruled that they superseded the stricter prior Frye standard, so the court didn't even rule whether this was a good idea, but simply whether Congressional rules override common law.
Polygraph tests, of course, should be inadmissible in court and should be forbidden as part of police work. This is the job of Obama and Congress. Obama should have pushed regulations against their use in any part of the federal government, and Congress should outlaw them. The fact that Obama instead chooses to persecute people tells you where he actually stands on the issue of scientific evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like the website has either been Slashdotted or killed by the Feds. I have actually visited the site several times and find it informative. I have been polygraphed one time, and passed it. It was to get a license to become a minimum wage + $.15 an hour security guard at a bank. The site says that the more you believe in the concept of lie detectors the greater the reaction displayed on the machine. It is a great tool for enhancing interrogations because of the fear factor.
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:5, Interesting)
So it's actually the WORST device in the world to use then.
Because the people who you don't want to get into the job, the ones who know that it's a load of baloney and any idiot can "pass" the test, will. And the people who are innocent but have that "guilty fear" that comes with natural innocence will "fail".
I'm sorry, but in my country, I'd laugh at you if you asked me to take one. And I'd probably be able to get you into the papers tomorrow in the funny section too, just to show you up. It's just that hilarious a concept. But then, to my knowledge, outside of very, very, very restricted professions we don't have work-prescribed drug testing or any of the other shit either (I don't do drugs, never have, but just the CONCEPT of someone demanding I take a drug test to work somewhere? Fuck off. And I work in education). When did your boss get to control your life?
And for a job in a BANK? FFS. The US must be much more stupid than I suspected.
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:5, Informative)
"I'm sorry, but in my country, I'd laugh at you if you asked me to take one."
You seem to have a strange idea of the United States. The job he was referring to is a private employment position for a bank, which is a privately-owned business. They can hire (or not) any security guard they want.
Personally, I would laugh at them too. Same with pre-employment drug screening. I simply won't do that. (And the practice has fallen out of favor, anyway.) But remember: it is private parties who did these things; it had nothing to do with government.
"When did your boss get to control your life?"
For a long time, a lot of people in the U.S. let employers get away with this kind of thing. I don't know why. I don't put up with it, nor do any of my friends. It isn't like that so much, anymore. I think the employers finally figured out that they were chasing away all the smart people.
"The US must be much more stupid than I suspected."
If you're judging an entire country by one person's anecdote, you must be much more stupid than I expected.
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:5, Interesting)
"Can't have those guys doing mind-numbingly boring jobs blowing off a little stress when they get home you know..."
Here's an interesting point, though: drug screening for pot will likely become an illegal practice in Washington and Colorado. You can't fire or "not hire" somebody for doing something perfectly legal that has nothing to do with the job, if it isn't happening on the job.
That is to say: hiring criteria has to be job-related. Appearance (clothing) can be job-related. Things you cay in public can (in some circumstances) be deemed job-related. But smoking a joint on your day off is in no way job-related. If it's also legal, then it's probably ILlegal for somebody to make it a hiring criterion (or grounds for firing).
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"Nah, never happen. Federal law allows drug screening and it will supersede state law. In fact, federal law requires drug screening for certain jobs and pot is one of the tier 1 drugs specifically outlawed."
Federal law only supersedes State law where (A) the two conflict, AND (B) it's a Constitutional question. The Federal government already knows that its drug laws are unconstitutional usurpations of State power... that's why the Feds have been saying lately they will only try to enforce Federal marijuana laws when STATE laws are violated. People have gotten wise to Federal overreaches, and the Feds want to maintain the illusion of authority where they can.
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Your website is based in the UK so I'll assume you are too. Lie detectors are used here, including in the criminal justice system and by security services looking to vet people. For example sometimes sex offenders are asked to take a test as part of their parole application.
Unfortunately we are just as dumb as America on this one.
Re: (Score:3)
In the UK: "Inadmissible in court"
And for good reason. That someone wants to take you through some dramatic rigmarole means nothing. You can't "use" them in the UK, for anything. Using the data from them is like saying you don't hire people who are Sagittarians, and would be treated the same way (i.e. unfair hiring practices, constructive dismissal, etc.)
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I'm pretty sure the article-writer agrees with you. His site is Antipolygraph. I have no clue if he talked to the police.
When's the last time slashdot actually slashdotted a site? It must have been years ago.
Re: (Score:3)
2) NEVER talk to the police.
In what backwards dirtball nation does that rule apply?
In most of the developed world, cops actually help people. It's their job.
Re: (Score:3)
So, if a dishonest cop/prosecutor wants to use this against you sometime in the future, they can.
Just because the people you are talking to are honest and fair doesn't mean everyone who reads their report will be.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Two things to remember about polygraphs: (Score:4, Informative)
2) NEVER talk to the police.
In what backwards dirtball nation does that rule apply?
Perhaps the one where they promise "Anything you say CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU." (Notes: Hollywood version, emphasis mine.)
tacit admission (Score:5, Insightful)
either Polygraphs are bullshit or these charges should be dropped...
by setting up the sting and charging the guys for what they did, they government is admitting that it is possible to fool the polygraph
if it is possible to fool the polygraph it leaves no doubt that the polygraph is not scientific or useful
by proving these men guilty, the prosecution simultaneously proves that the lie detector is a farce and negates the logical need for the entire charade in the first place
a good lawyer could get a not guilty verdict IMHO
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:tacit admission (Score:5, Insightful)
Just ask Edward Snowden.
Re:tacit admission (Score:5, Informative)
It's a psychological spiel. What a polygraph does is to note down reactions, both voluntary and involuntary. When you get asked questions, your body reacts. The idea is now that lying requires more "work" from you than telling the truth, since you have to fabricate it.
In reality, though, the way you react is dependent on so many facets that whether you lie or tell the truth plays a minor role, if any. It's like saying that you can tell what TV program someone is watching by looking at how much power he uses. While technically, in theory, possible, there are so many other appliances running in his house (or not) that their combination pretty much drowns out that information in way too much noise.
What is left of the polygraph is that people might THINK it works, and hence react differently. The goal is to give you the impression that it not only can, but WILL tell, without a doubt, that you're lying if you lie. So you get told that it can easily spot when and how you lie (it cannot), that it will be used in court against you (it cannot), that they used it multiple times to convict people (they have not) and so on.
The psychology around it is the actual "value" of it during an interrogation. Just like in medieval times showing the instruments of torture were usually enough to extract confessions, so does telling people about the polygraph. The main difference probably being that the instruments of torture can actually deliver what is promised, something the polygraph cannot.
The US of A (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The US of A (Score:5, Insightful)
What really kicks me in the ass is that all of our legislators and nearly every adult in the US remembers a time when we measured ourselves by what we are not and what we will not and do not do. Now we are doing it. People are STILL saying "we live in a free country."
Re:The US of A (Score:5, Informative)
Try asking anyone under 30 if they know what the phrase "Papers Please!" denotes
It's just two words... It's a lot of things.
It's when the Military place soldiers in a natural disaster area such as New Orleans after Katrina requiring you to show [windsofchange.net] military ID or proof of government authorization, to avoid arrest, or having vehicles impounded
It's an attack onAmerican birthright citizenship [immigrationpolicy.org]
It's two words that succinctly describe America's dark future.
Personal and Professional Encounters with Surveillance [mit.edu]
anti-state.com: May I See Your Papers Please? [anti-state.com]
It's what Mr. Hiibel of Nevada went to jail [washingtontimes.com] for refusing to comply with
It's what police do now [copblock.org] to ordinary people minding their own business.
It's congress work on the REAL ID [thenewamerican.com] act
It's a name given to a section of an Arizona law [phoenixnewtimes.com] upheld by the Supreme court.
It's the name of a complaint against changes the US is making starting this Fall 2013 to further restrict the free travel of Americans and greatly increase the difficulty of US citizens getting passports
It's the name of a dystopian video game about communist immigration control.
It's the name of an anti-TSA [papersplease.org] blog
It's a request you comply with when asked by the police; otherwise, you face immediate arrest.
Re: (Score:2)
Go giant DOUCHE!!!!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
selling dousing rods as bomb detectors
So they're supposed to detect bombs by spraying water?
Re:Dousing rods (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with the dousing rod bomb detectors were not because they were shite, they were accepted by the UK Gov as legitimate, making it a political problem as well as a technical & ethical problem. The bastard selling them was an ex-Met police officer, had connections and even though anyone with two brain cells and a technical background could clearly say they were fake, they managed to catch the bombs roughly 50% of the time. Of course, if you flip a coin you'll get it 50% of the time but for people who don't understand probability, this sounds like a very high catch rate. The alarming reports have been around for years and years but it took a BBC documentary for people to wake up and pay attention.
Any politician who had authorized the purchase of the fake systems were just too corrupt to accept they made a huge cockup. I wonder how much money was paid in bribes, worldwide.
Re:Dousing rods (Score:5, Insightful)
Dowsing rods do sorta work. They work by giving the user 'permission' to acknowledge their gut feeling that comes from minute observations they aren't consciously aware of.
However, this was a scam since a few cents worth of bailing wire can do that and this clown was charging 'thousands' and adding worthless fake circuitry.
video on how pass one (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/138896/liar-liar.jhtml [mtv.com]
Slashdotted content (delete when available again) (Score:5, Informative)
An Attempted Entrapment
Posted by George Maschke on 3 November 2013, 1:34 pm
In May 2013, I was the target of an attempted entrapment.1 Whether it was a federal agent attempting to entrap me on a contrived material support for terrorism charge or simply an individual’s attempt to embarrass me and discredit AntiPolygraph.org remains unclear. In this post, I will provide a full public accounting of the attempt, including the raw source of communications received and the IP addresses involved.
As background, it should be borne in mind that a federal criminal investigation into providers of information on polygraph countermeasures, dubbed “Operation Lie Busters,” has been underway since at least November 2011, when an undercover U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, posing as a job applicant, contacted Chad Dixon of Marion, Indiana for help on passing the polygraph. In December, 2012, Dixon pleaded guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and obstruction of an agency proceeding, for which he has been sentenced to 8 months in federal prison.
Doug Williams of Norman, Oklahoma, a former police polygrapher who has been teaching people how to pass polygraph examinations for some three decades and operates the website Polygraph.com, was also the target of a sting operation and in February 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection executed search warrants on his home and office, seizing business records. He has been threatened with prosecution but to date has not been charged with any crime.
With this in mind, I received a most curious unsolicited communication on Saturday, 18 May 2013 from <mohammadali201333@yahoo.com>. The message was sent to my AntiPolygraph.org e-mail address <lt;maschke@antipolygraph.org> and was titled “help help help please” (155 kb EML file.) The message body was blank, but there was a PDF attachment with a short message written in Persian, the language of Iran:
I know Persian, a fact of which the writer was evidently cognizant. Here is a translation:
Greetings and respect to you, Mr. George Maschke,
I am Mohammad Aghazadeh and have been living in Iraq for five years. I am a member of an Islamic group that seeks to restore freedom to Iraq. Because the federal police are suspicious of me, they want to do a lie detector test on me. I ask that you send me a copy of your book about the lie behind the lie so that I can use it, or that you help me in any other way. I am very grateful to you.
The book to which the message refers is The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF), AntiPolygraph.org’s free e-book that, among other things, explains how to pass (or beat) a polygraph “test.” Factors that made me highly suspicious about this message include:
Why would someone who supposedly fears the police send an unencrypted e-mail acknowledging that he’s a member of an Islamic group that is trying to change the government of Iraq?
Why would such a person also provide his full name and how long he’s been in the country?
To my knowledge, there aren’t any Iranian-backed Islamic groups seeking to “restore freedom to Iraq.” In fact, Iran and Iraq have good diplomatic relations.
Why did this person ask me to send a book that is freely available on-line? Note that this message didn’t ask for a “Persian edition” of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.
I suspected the message was a likely attempt to set me up for prosecution on charges of material support for terrorism (or something similar).2 It seemed highly unlikely that the message could be genuine. Nonetheless, about half an hour after receiving the message, I provided “Mohammad Aghazadeh” the same advice I would give to anyone accused of a crime who has been asked to take a polygraph test:
Dear Mr. Mohammad Aghazadeh,
Our advice to everyone under such circumstances is not to submit to the so-called
This doesn't belong on Slashdot. (Score:3)
There's no hint that the government is behind this. It looks like a squabble between to polygraph examiners.
Re: (Score:2)
Alpha we know its you now. Fuck off.
Re:The Rancidest Hole of All (Score:5, Funny)
You would think that General Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, would have something better to do than troll a Slashdot comments section. Aren't there illegal wiretaps to order or surveillance records to be shredded?
Re:Why do they go through all the trouble? (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer to that question is quite simple. Some years back, I had to take a polygraph and frankly, it felt as if a "game" was being played where I didn't know the rules. There were some issues with my test so they rescheduled me for a followup. Since I didn't like the feeling that there was a game being played, I spent the time before the follow up researching polygraphy. Turns out that there's a lot of information on the subject and I also found out that there was a classified government study on the effectiveness of polygraphs. I didn't see the contents of that study, but [i]if[/i] that study reflected the information available in the public literature and [i]if[/i] I were to be a classification authority, I too would have classified the study. The reason is because the public literature boils down to the following.
Polygraphy as a tool for distinguishing truth from lies is totally worthless. However, as a tool for eliciting voluntary confessions from naive subjects, it's quite effective.
So as long as it's kept mysterious and secret, it's quite useful. But once the pool of naive subjects is gone (and they would be gone if the reality of polygraphy were widespread), then that tool becomes worthless.
Re: (Score:3)
I think it's a form of hypnotism really. The government has a vested interest in keeping the masses hypnotized that polygraphs are magical lie detectors. Therefore, anyone who knows how to defeat the righteous magic must be some kind of evil super-genius. For some reason, this works in the USA. Maybe it's just yet another sign of a failed public education system and anti-intellectual sentiment that demonizes critical thinking.
We see the same kind of woo and bullshit when it comes to "cyber" security. B
Re: (Score:3)
It is a multi-faceted intimidation tool. It works by convincing the target that their defence is hopeless. Knowing it is a myth doesn't help if everybody else in the penal(*) system believes in it. There is value in propping up the myth - it helps close cases. Even if you are falsely incarcerated because of it, you were probably guilty of something....
(*) Of course, if it were a justice system, such chicanery would have no place.
Re:attention submitter, an actual technical reply! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:George you were hacked. (Score:4, Informative)