Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
|
From: Ken Smith on 1 Mar 2007 09:49 In article <es6ldg$8qk_001(a)s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >In article <es1h1n$89d$2(a)blue.rahul.net>, > kensmith(a)green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote: [.....] >>This is likely a very different matter than the money leaving the account >>it was in. When I put money in my bank accound at the "electronic >>teller", I punch in the amount in the checks. The bank shows my balance >>increased by the amount I entered. They actually give two numbers. The >>first is the new balance the second is how much is "available". When I >>first started with the bank the available amount would only increase the >>next day after they've looked at the contents. These days the numbers are >>the same. > >Do krw's suggestion and google "check 21". That's what is getting >advertised here which will allow anybody to deposit via a scanner. >Retail and commercial stores are already doing this. As I pointed out this is more for the deposit end than the withdrawing. Your bank has to also agree before money can leave your account. You can pick the bank with the better policies. [....] >>>Wait a while, then. All of my monthly bills now say this. >> >>I will take some sort of action if they start any nonsense like that with >>me. > >I've been trying to tell you that there is no sort of action to take Yes you've been trying to tell me many things. This is just another thing that you are trying to tell me that is incorrect. You even followed this with an example of something else that can be done. Read your own text below. >other than the strategies I've been talking about in this thread drift. >I fired American Express credit card because this is the only way >they process receipts. Since their check-handling section was >not doing things well, I fired them. I got another credit card >whose data bases have never seen my finiancial key information. > >Until another method of payment is developed, that's the way it >is going to stay. Now this approach is not a viable one for >people who workb because it take too much wallclock time to >pay the credit card bill. [.....] >I thought about having two banks but that won't work in this area. >Banks change their names and merge and split honoring the rules of >musical chairs. You can move some of your money into a bank at some distance to the little backwater you live in. > >>[....] >>>>The Fed is attempting to make the process all electronic. I trust humans >>>>about as little as I trust computers so I don't see much of a change in >>>>security in this. Back when everything was on paper, someone could empty >>>>your account with a fraud. All that has happened is that the tools have >>>>changed a bit. >>> >>>Not only have the tools changed, but the speed of the transactions >>>are now in picoseconds and the number of transactions made has >>>increased enormously/minute. >> >>Those are issues of quantity not quality. > >Exactly. Quality is out the window. > >[Blame my fingers for that one; I didn't do it.] Since you didn't put in a real argument against, I assume you are now granting the point. >>> In addition, no human is in the middle >>>of the process so there is nobody to notice if something goes wrong >>>and push the stop button. >> >>That person in the middle was more likely to make an error than prevent >>one, > >The sole purpose of having that person in the middle was to slow >the process down. This was a good thing. Eliminating it has opened >all flavors of worm cans. The person was a major source of error. They slowed it down and increased the risk. Nothing but a little subjective comfort is gained by having the person in the loop. Unless you go to the bank hourly, a person is more than fast enough to completely mess things up while you aren't looking. >>>a lot of this identify theft in the news is possible because >>>no human needs to OK transactions. Banking is no longer local >>>and most of it now is impersonal. >> >>The identity theft crime has been going on from before when there were >>computers. The problem is that people allow important information about >>themselves to be stolen from obvious places. > >Not any more. Eliminating the requirement of human interaction has >caused the rate of incidences to increase astronmically. I grant that there has been an increase but the tide is turning: From here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06026/644909.stm **** begin Pittsburgh, Pa. Identity theft complaints still rising, but rate slows Thursday, January 26, 2006 By Christopher Conkey, The Wall Street Journal Businesses, law-enforcement agencies and consumers may be beginning to turn the tide in the war against identity theft, data from the Federal Trade Commission suggest. Identity-theft complaints were up again last year to nearly 256,000, the FTC said, but that was only 3.5 percent higher than the year before. In 2004, complaints rose by 15 percent and in 2003 by 33 percent. Complaints about credit-card fraud -- the largest subset of identity theft -- declined 1.3 percent last year to 67,228, from 68,113 in 2004, and were also lower than the 2003 level. Total consumer-fraud complaints -- including identity theft -- totaled 686,683 last year, up slightly from 2004. Industry officials and analysts say the development and widespread adoption of antifraud technologies are responsible for lower levels of card fraud. Visa USA Inc. said investments in its risk-management systems have reduced fraud levels to six cents for every $100 processed, down from 12 cents a decade ago. Separately, the FTC is expected to announce Thursday tough action against a company at the center of the personal-data industry. ChoicePoint Inc. is expected to agree to pay a multimillion-dollar penalty to settle alleged data-security violations stemming from a yearlong investigation by federal regulators, according to a person briefed on the matter. ChoicePoint spokesman Chuck Jones declined to comment. ChoicePoint, which sells consumer data to financial institutions and government agencies, last February disclosed that criminals posing as legitimate businessmen had fraudulently obtained personal information on 145,000 people. That figure was later revised to 162,000 people. In order to prevent fraud, many companies have turned to real-time fraud-scoring systems, which -- much like credit-scoring models -- assign three-digit scores to credit applications based on a variety of data confirmations and behavioral examinations. Steven Gal, vice president for corporate development at ID Analytics, a San Diego company that provides fraud-detection services, says his company screened over 250 million applications last year for potential fraud, a fourfold increase from 2004. The FTC figures offer a rare bit of hopeful news for consumers concerned that the recent string of security breaches at credit-card processors and banks will place them at risk, and for a financial industry continually under attack by computer fraud and other scams. To be sure, identity theft remains a huge threat that costs businesses $50 billion a year and plunges victims into a draining, time-consuming battle to eradicate fraudulent activity. The FTC will release a survey this spring, but its most recent figures show that 10 million people, or roughly 4.6 percent of the adult population, are affected by identity theft each year, and that victims spend an average of $500 and 30 hours to clear their records. The FTC report, based on data the agency receives from consumers, comes after a year of high-profile security lapses that exposed personal information belonging to more than 50 million consumers and familiarized many people with the crime of identity theft. Just Wednesday, financial-services provider Ameriprise Financial Inc. announced that the theft of one of its employees' laptops had compromised the data of some 226,000 clients and current and former workers. Such breaches have led to an outcry from consumer advocates, and lawmakers across the country moved to enact stiffer penalties and stronger protections. Legislation in Congress has stalled, but many states have enacted laws that force companies to disclose breaches or allow consumers to shield their credit reports from unauthorized access. FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras stressed how important it is for consumers to file complaints when they are victimized, saying they "provide ammunition that helps law enforcers fight fraud and identity theft." When the agency receives identity-theft complaints, they are analyzed, clustered with similar ones and made available to law-enforcement officials to assist with investigations and criminal trials. Betsy Broder, the attorney in charge of the FTC's identity-theft program, says the agency's database now contains more than one million complaints, which are used by law enforcement in investigations and criminal trials. The FTC's complaint data showed that identity theft accounted for 37 percent of total fraud complaints. For the fourth year in a row, Washington, D.C., was the leader in total per-capita fraud complaints, and several Western cities led in the category of identity-theft complaints, including Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Meanwhile, identity-theft complaints surged in hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, rising 26 percent last year, while Mississippi saw an 8 percent increase. Complaints related to "government documents or benefits" in Louisiana more than doubled, however, to 551 from 247, possibly an indicator of post-Katrina fraud. Overall, the drop in credit-card fraud complaints was offset by an increase in complaints about the misuse of government records, and fraud involving things such as medical records, legal documents and fitness-club memberships. Bank-, phone- and utilities-related complaints stayed roughly the same, although complaints about electronic fund transfers rose. Sophisticated identity thieves are always probing for vulnerabilities. One troubling trend emerged late last year, when the Securities and Exchange Commission warned that identity thieves were using keystroke-detecting programs to drain online brokerage accounts. Similarly, federal banking regulators have prodded financial institutions to move beyond "single-factor" authentication, which only requires a user name and password to gain access to accounts, by the end of this year. For many consumer advocates, the focus is squarely on financial institutions to do more to catch identity thieves in the act. Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, says "there are some technology-based tools they can use, and there's some evidence showing that these tools are having marked effect. But sadly for victims, identity theft remains rampant." (John R. Wilke contributed to this article.) -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: Ken Smith on 1 Mar 2007 10:19 In article <es6ggr$8qk_003(a)s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >In article <es45pa$fiu$4(a)blue.rahul.net>, > kensmith(a)green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote: [.....] >>>If it's a rumor, then the experts believe it, too. >> >>That happens all the time. Lots of people get fooled by good sounding >>stuff that they have never really experimented on. >> >This radio station has experts who know the subject. For example, >and IRS person is on for shows about income taxes. A lawyer for >estate planning. A doctor for medical subjects. Computer geeks >for computer usages. And the people are local which means the >people know each other. This station does a lot of shows >with the retire auld farts in mind. There still is a Santa >Claus in some areas of the US. If you had google, I'd suggest you google on "N rays" *** begin insert *** René Prosper Blondlot (1849-1930) was a French physicist who claimed to have discovered a new type of radiation, shortly after Roentgen had discovered X-rays. He called it the N-ray, after Nancy, the name of the town and the university where he lived and worked. Blondlot was trying to polarize X-rays when he claimed to have discovered his new form of radiation. Dozens of other scientists confirmed the existence of N-rays in their own laboratories. However, N-rays don't exist. How could so many scientists be wrong? They deceived themselves into thinking they were seeing something when in fact they were not. They saw what they wanted to see with their instruments, not what was actually there (or, in this case, what was not there ********** This sort of thing goes on all the time. Even experts have biases and fool themselves all the time. Some do so more than others. For example Rummy was supposed to be an expert on things military. Can you think of anything he got right? -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: krw on 1 Mar 2007 10:20 In article <epccu25dvaomn9ak8i5fmq0lks6prbbtuh(a)4ax.com>, MassiveProng(a)thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org says... > On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:01:40 -0600, "nonsense(a)unsettled.com" > <nonsense(a)unsettled.com> Gave us: > > >Also, check out "real time reliable" systems. > > You're an idiot. I can say reliably that you are clueless. > Sorry "nonsense" you only rate a '6' on the Dimbulb-o-meter. -- Keith
From: Ken Smith on 1 Mar 2007 10:21 In article <bbdd5$45e64f23$4fe74e3$22224(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, nonsense(a)unsettled.com <nonsense(a)unsettled.com> wrote: >Ken Smith wrote: >> In article <8ab6a$45e5c387$4fe73b0$13095(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, >> nonsense(a)unsettled.com <nonsense(a)unsettled.com> wrote: > >>>Ken Smith wrote: > >>>>In article <es3v6k$8qk_001(a)s823.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >>>> <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: > >>>>>There exists a Murphy's Law corrollary that guarantees each time >>>>>a file is opened an error will be introduced. > >>>>This is simply bogus BS. > >>>Any time you open a file in a writable mode an error may >>>be introduced. > >> The "in a writable mode" makes this a very different statement. > >>>Now consider your linux system. Every time access any file, >>>changes are written. Believe it or not, an error may be >>>introduced. Knowing Murphy as intimately as I do, some >>>significant number will end up introducing an error. When >>>it is, in my case, the error will be important. > >> That is a case where the file has been modified not merely opened for >> reading. > >ls -lu I assume you had a point. [....] >>>BAH's career included a requirement that she be paranoid >>>about all things that can go wrong. There's no sense arguing >>>these issues because in the different worlds you live in >>>each of you is right. > >> Her's must be some other planet. > >Your definition of planet and mine differ. Therefor yours is wrong. -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: Ken Smith on 1 Mar 2007 10:29
In article <es6h92$8qk_001(a)s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >In article <es5i08$ujr$3(a)blue.rahul.net>, > kensmith(a)green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote: [....] >>The "in a writable mode" makes this a very different statement. > >Each time you copy, the file has been in a writable mode. The output side must be writable but not the input side. This means that there may be an error in the copy you make but you don't change the source file. When the copy process does the verify, the error will almost certainly be detected. [.....] >>That is a case where the file has been modified not merely opened for >>reading. > >Has the date changed? Then some part of the overhead of the >file has changed. If you are saving this file to a backup tape, >you are writing that file to another device. If you have >an OS that keeps track of written blocks, then the list of >those blocks can be changed, especially if a bad spot forms >on the device. This is only a problem with this copy of the file and not with the one we were backing up. You have also ignored the verify step which is always done. >Those are only a few of the things that can go wrong. There >is always the midnight editor. On a network? There are lots >of opportunities to get a file modified without your knowledge. None of this changes the fact that you mixed up back up, restore and repair. The whole reason you do a back up is because files can be changed when they shouldn't. This is not a question we have been arguing. >>>"Reliable" systems are defined by a threshold in the number >>>of errors/some_number of operations. But you knew that, no? >> >>Yes, I knew that but it appears that BAH doesn't understand about the >>difference between making a back up, doing a restore and repairing damage. > >I do. I simply posed the situation where the problem that caused the >mess is also on the backup. Doing a restore will restore the >mess maker. As I pointed out, this is exactly what a restore would do. It puts the files back as they were on some date in the past. If the files are not right on that date, those incorrect files are exactly what you want a backup to have on it. You have mixed up the question with one of repair. That is a different topic. -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge |