(no subject)

[theweaselking]

UK highest court rules that evidence obtained by torture is inadmissable, regardless of circumstance:

"The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer justice" -- Lord Bingham, former Lord Chief Justice and head of the panel that ruled on the subject.

(Stolen from autopope, whose "A Colder War" can never be pimped quite enough.)

Also,


Also,

See her? That's "Christopher Robin" in Disney's new Pooh series.

Also,
Miss snow? Have a webcam? Add snow to your webcam! The wind follows your cursor and the snow piles up on any "edges" it finds in the image.

Also,
Need an alibi? Buy one! The Alibi network will provide corroborating evidence for the lies of your choice, for a $35 annual subscription.

Also,


Also,
Has anyone else ever noticed the similarity between ontology and oncology, and thought about what that might mean in the right setting?

Also,
Annoying Computer Things In Movies. A particular unfavourite is "A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries" - but that's because it's really true, because an idiot manager somewhere wrote the password down on his desk.

Comments

Disney sucks

[frith]

Say what? Christopher Robin is a dooooode! And kids didn't wear sissy bike helmets in 1926. Or long baggy pants. Or a back-pack. Or a bib. Where are the rubber boots? What's with the red hair? Is that Peppermint Patty or what? Sacrilège!

Nice toroidal explosion.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

but that's because it's really true, because an idiot manager somewhere wrote the password down on his desk.

One of the things I really liked about the movie Wargames is that we see this in action, as Matthew Broderick makes use of his social engineering skills to get the password from the principal's office.

Of course, that's a school office, not Los Alamos or something, but the principle is the same.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

"A particular unfavourite is "A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries" - but that's because it's really true, because an idiot manager somewhere wrote the password down on his desk."

The episode of Jennifer Mars I saw (on DVD) last night had a funny variation on this. V wants into her dad's safe but unfortunately all the tricks she knows for guessing combos (try birthdays, look for post-its with the combo on them) she learned from her dad, so it is unlikely that he'd make any of the obvious mistake. Except he does: the combination is written in his calender.

What she should do is ask "why was this so easy?" What she does is go into the safe, remove a box that she thinks might have the info that she is looking for, which in fact has an ink-bomb triggered when the box is opened.

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

The thing I like now about Wargames (other than Matthew Broderick when he was still young and cute instead of old and squidgy) is that of all the variations on the "brilliant young computer genius hacks into top secret government blahbadah" plot that have been churned out since then, Wargames was the only one that still seems even remotely probable, simply because it makes sense that even the U.S. government would still be a bit naive about computer security in 1983.

Now I think I need to rent that.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

I have an extra copy of it on DVD that had some slight damage to the dvd case and even slighter to the paper thingy, under a perfectly intact plastic wrapper. Want?

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

Sure! Email me?