tdaxp

"Chapter 26," by King Solomon, Proverbs, http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=24&chapte....

"TSA Violated Privacy Act," by CowboyNeal, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/23/1339252&a....

"Terror Is as Terror Does," by Doc Ruby, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13....

"Brilliant Strategy," by Anonymous Coward, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13....

"This makes me mad...," by tdaxp, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13144940.

"it pains me..." by Anonymous Coward, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13145286.

Recently, Slashdot had an article on possible wrongdoing by the Transportation Safety Administration

pin_gween writes "Remember when the TSA said they wanted info on travelers last year? They said they were only using names to test new software. Apparently, they lied. The Guardian has an AP wire about a Congressional report on the TSA. From the article: 'The agency actually took 43,000 names of passengers and used about 200,000 variations of those names - who turned out to be real people who may not have flown that month, the GAO said. A TSA contractor collected 100 million records on those names.' They also 'published a second notice indicating that it would do the things it had earlier said it wouldn't do.' A TSA spokesman said the info will be destroyed when the test is over. My question -- will the test actually end?"

Serious indeed. However, most comments where like this was, which was labeled "5, Insightful" -- the highest possible rating on Slashdot

The TSA will, of course, lie whenever possible. Because they have no accountability. And lying gives them power. Not just "to take over the world", but to do a lousy job. To be lazy, incompetent, and still get paid.

Really, it's completely obvious that, except for the Qaeda and the Taliban, that slogan about "the post-9/11 world" everyone on TV chants, "everything changed", is total BS. Nothing changed, except the ability to scare people into submission went off the charts. People who wanted war in Iraq, no matter what, got their war. People who wanted giant defense budgets got them. People who wanted to discard habeas corpus protections got rid of them. People who wanted Republicans to control all the branches of government got them. People who wanted an excuse for a broken economy, to cover up offshoring, inadequate education, failed confidence from Enron, WorldCom, ArthurAndersen, and a generation of Wall Street snake oil salesmen, got their excuse. People who wanted tax shirking got it. People who wanted racial profiling and massive privacy invasion got it. People who wanted government handouts to their welfare states, at the cost of $trillions in debt, got all that. And all the oil profiteers got $60:barrel oil, which costs little more to extract and sell than when it was $25. And of course they got federal tax credits for buying SUVs that get <15MPG, rather than 50MPG alternative energy vehicles.

But only if you embraced terror: became a terrorist. People who didn't, like the Democrats, didn't get what they wanted

And the following is rated "4, Funny"

I'm so sick and tired of all the stupid libertarians/liberals here always misunderestimating the President, whose only goal is to keep us all safe from harm.

Terrorists hate America because they hate our freedom, right? By taking away Americans' freedom, you effectively remove the terrorist threat. Take that Osama Hussein!

My comment was "0, Flamebait" -- the lowest possible rating

This makes me mad... almost as mad as the fact that Muslim terrorists use passenger jets to crash into tall buildings and kill thousands of people .

I do not like the TSA's deception/incompetence/whatever. But please put this story in perspective. Evil terrorists want to kill us. TSA was created to try to thwart them. If the TSA is erring on the side of caution, it's too bad they are making mistakes. But if those mistakes stop evil murderers from blowing things up with jets with my family on them, I'm not going to be too upset.

To put it in comparison, this reply is rated higher than that:

But if those mistakes stop evil murderers from blowing things up with jets with my family on them, I'm not going to be too upset.

But what if they don't ? What if they just serve to increase government control over its citizens instead, while doing little about terrorism ?

Do you blindly trust a government that is, by and large, corporation- and church-controlled ? Actually - do you honestly believe that this is about terrorism ?

Well, watching a once grand community be swarmed by anti-American Leftists, at least I can take comfort in the cool, coherent, easy-to-understand words of the Bible

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you will be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes

 

Darn it!!!

"Tear Down the Firewall," by timothy, Slashdot, 9 July 2005, http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/09/1758205&am....

Congratulation to Stuart Berman of My Kids' Dad for having his article on firewalls mentioned on the uber-geek Slashdot

lousyd writes "'What's the best firewall for servers?' asked one Slashdot poster. 'Give up the firewall' answers Security Pipeline columnist Stuart Berman. Through creatively separating server functions into different, isolated servers, and assigning them to a three tiered system of security levels, his company has almost completely eliminated the need for (and headache of) network firewalls. "Taking that crutch away has forced us to rethink our security model," Berman says. The cost of the added servers is greatly minimized by making them virtual servers on the same machine, using Xen. With the new security-enhanced XenSE, this might become easier and more possible. What has you chained to your firewall?"

That's almost as important as having the same article mentioned at tdaxp -- a month ago! :)