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I don’t believe I ever inferred it was only about the game. Meaningful rewards are an integral part of the game. What I did say is that the online poker experience does not have to match up to the experience of Vegas (or other destinations) in order for it to be legitimate.

It’s a hobby that a lot of people enjoy. I don’t want to argue with you and don’t have enough respect from you to change your mind. I would instead ask that you think about your hobbies, think about whether they have ever damaged a small minority of those that participate, and decide how you would react if someone made your hobby illegal under the guise of morality.

about 3 hours ago on Fierce opposition to online gambling fades, but don't bet on legalization 1 reply

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When you remove the destination and focus on tiny card games with poor CG – it’s just sickness and everyone knows it.

Can’t understand how anyone actually thinks this, especially on this site where phone operating systems are argued with religious zeal and video games are widely held as an artform.

People love chess even though it is a poor substitute for true military strategy, all those first person shooters don’t do a very good job of imitating “real” war yet still sell millions of copies, and people have been playing MMOs since they were called MUDs and had no graphics at all. It’s not about the graphics or how close online poker is to sitting at a table in Vegas.

about 3 hours ago on Fierce opposition to online gambling fades, but don't bet on legalization 1 reply 1 recommend

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Chipotle makes a big deal out of trying to do all they can. For example if they can’t get their usually hormone free meat, they put a sign out right at the front to let you know. If it’s an important factor to you, then you can order something else or make another choice.

I’m not saying their system is perfect, but it’s really nice to see someone try.

about 23 hours ago on Chipotle becomes first US fast food chain to label all genetically modified ingredients 1 reply 20 recommends

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Scale matters here because of intended use.

I may not expect that there is no record of me using my phone, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that information is known.

But I do not expect that information to be analyzed along with thousands of possible contacts to draw a web of my interactions along with those of everyone I interact with. This would be, and is, surprising. If it’s outside of my reasonable expectation, then presumably no longer covered.

A parallel might be that it is reasonable for an officer to ask where I am headed when I get pulled over. It would be unreasonable for them to know that I am not on my usual path for this time of day and to pull me over for that reason alone.

about 23 hours ago on President Obama defends NSA program in 'Charlie Rose' interview 1 recommend

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This law fixes that. That’s the whole point of the legislation.

2 days ago on Texas first state to mandate warrants for email surveillance

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Time, IMEI, SIM/phone number are already being stored. Altitude is notoriously unreliable and wouldn’t be of use anyway. A whole call record may be a kb, but I doubt that (check out field storage size for mySQL as an example). They’re saying specifically location information pushes this over the top in terms of resources. So again, we’re talking 2 or 3 records in addition to what they’re admitting to storing.

The known records are per phone call, so I’m assuming the location information would be per call as well rather than the more frequent possibilities you mention.

Really it doesn’t even matter how many times they store the information, what they’re essentially claiming is 20 records makes sense to store just in case, but 23 is just too crazy expensive and that’s why they don’t do it.

3 days ago on Report: NSA doesn't collect citizens' geolocation data because it would cost too much

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This sounds pretty bogus, I can’t see a way around that.

Location would be stored as what? Latitude and longitude? Two numerical records for information that can literally draw a map of someone’s activities seems like the costs wouldn’t be the barrier. For what, a 5% increase in storage costs?

The closest thing I could find quickly about long term database record storage costs was in reference to medical records, there was a lot of number justification (here if interested) but it came down to

4 megabytes*15*16/2*.89/1000 = 42 cents per patient for the first 15 years

Would those two records be more than 4 megabytes per person? It doesn’t seem like it, unless they’re making a lot of calls.

Does anyone think 42 cents for 15 years of storage would prove to be the deal breaker on this sort of thing? Again I don’t think so.

As far as the costs of interpreting that information it seems easier to link that up to any mapping software than to wade through some of the other data they are admittedly collecting.

This is the scariest part of “metadata” for the average person and conveniently they’re saying it isn’t collected at all.

This smells bad.

3 days ago on Report: NSA doesn't collect citizens' geolocation data because it would cost too much 1 reply

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That’s because Jay is obviously the Bill Gates of rap, fashion, phones, downtown, and the letter H.

3 days ago on Jay-Z giving away 1 million early copies of new album to Samsung owners 2 replies 74 recommends

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This “no thumb drive” policy has the same strength and protections as the ones that are there to protect privacy.

And anyone with a few months on the job can get around both at will. You can’t rely on policy to stop people, you can only use it to wag a finger at them afterwards.

6 days ago on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden used banned thumb drive to smuggle documents 1 recommend

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Ok, the things that took me from extremely skeptical in all this to thinking it’s more likely happening than not include:

- The original PRISM leaks that kicked off this scrutiny. Which among other things alleges that if a target’s data has gone through the US, they may have it in addition to the possible partnerships with tech companies. There was also the Boundless Informant slide which shows an overview of data collected. Let’s start here with the assumption that these are unproven and hold them against the other information here. That was how I viewed them originally.

- Then found out about Room 641a and the resulting lawsuit against the government well before this latest batch of leaks.

- Watching this ex-NSA employee who says the agency has turned the surveillance tools he helped build inward, then he gave up his life’s work to expose it.

- A lawsuit filed in 2008 alleging this level of spying would be the result of laws being considered after reading them and determining this was authorized.

- Finding out about this huge data center being built in Utah to house records for the NSA, storing metadata simply isn’t that resource intensive.

- The reaction of the President and several individuals serving in congress to the revelation that all phone calls are indexed as metadata. Essentially there were three consistent aspects – 1) It happens. 2) it’s legal 3) we think it’s useful. If the phone data has been so useful, imagine how useful internet communications would be. Many are text based, easy to summarize, easy to index, and already intended to be stored efficiently by design. Again, the right to gather this information seems to be authorized by a secret court that hasn’t denied a request in the last two years.

- Keep in mind the fact that the NSA and other intelligence agencies don’t view data as “collected” or “intercepted” until it’s been viewed. So in that model, you can store whatever you want as long as you don’t look at it.

- This excellent timeline from the EFF regarding actions related including the admission that at some point the program has violated someone’s Constitutional rights, but they can’t talk about it due to the state secrets involved. What?

- Have you seen a denial that seems informed and forthright? I haven’t, but I’d be happy to watch/read one that was worthwhile.

Going through all these different pieces of evidence being released at different times you get several small windows into what’s happening overall. As a whole, they all seem to match, almost without exception. It makes sense. If you were going to spy on everyone and store it, this is what that system would look like.

I’m not trying to bury you in links, I just want folks to see that while it may not be a casual 15 minutes to digest, there is some evidence out there to suggest that this may not be the tinfoil hat pipedream that it seems on the surface if you just look at one aspect.

I still hope I’m wrong. If not we need to do something about it. This level of surveillance isn’t OK as a minimum requirement for living in the US and we didn’t sign up for it. I’m not against security but I am against this sort of data repository in anyone’s hands.

7 days ago on NSA director says agency will release full number of terror plots foiled by surveillance 1 recommend

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To review, you have no problem with your government logging and storing the majority of your communications (phone, email, web traffic), indexing it to build a profile of you, and then having the ability to query that at any point in the future?

7 days ago on NSA director says agency will release full number of terror plots foiled by surveillance 1 reply 1 recommend

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From http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. This was written by Franklin, within quotation marks but is generally accepted as his original thought, sometime shortly before February 17, 1775 as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, as published in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818).

A variant of this was published as: Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. This was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759); the book was published by Franklin; its author was Richard Jackson, but Franklin did claim responsibility for some small excerpts that were used in it.

8 days ago on Senators propose bill to declassify orders behind NSA spying 1 recommend