Posts by Nigel McNie
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As far as I remember, Labour's information was only available due to a combination of oversight and misconfiguration of their servers (allowing access to data they should have denied, or data that should have been stored elsewhere entirely).
It's extremely likely that not even Labour wanted to be able to access the information in the manner that it was by WhaleOil (they would have other, authorised ways to get at it, such as legitimate login/ftp accounts on the server). More likely, they simply didn't realise it could be accessed that way, and if someone would have told them, they would have removed that avenue of access.
Perhaps an analogy would be leaving your door unlocked. If someone thinks to try the door and finds it unlocked, then lifts your mail from where you left it inside the door, is it still unauthorised? My intuition says yes - they're obviously tresspassing, and haven't been authorised to do so - but I don't know how well this analogy carries into the law around hacking.
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I remember boggling when I found out that abortion was illegal in NZ, and that you had to get yourself declared mentally unfit for pregnancy to get one.
A previous partner forgot to take the pill on two occasions. We had agreed, perhaps naively, that the pill was what we would rely on. On those two occasions, she had to take the emergency contraceptive pill, just in case. This was stressful, but I can't imagine how much worse it would have been for us if she'd have actually gotten pregnant. We didn't want a child, that's why we used the contraception. But we would have been faced with something akin to getting her declared mentally unwell (on top of the rest of the sorry process). She wasn't mentally unwell at all.
Were we silly for just relying on the pill? Perhaps. Feel free to judge, if it makes you feel better. But it doesn't change the fact that we were two rational, sensible human beings, making a choice that was right for us - no children right now please. The abortion law as it stands doesn't allow us to make that choice without "society" effectively blaming us if an accident occurs.
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What an awesome set of advice. Thank you.
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I am heartened by the storm of protest his ranting has received. People care. The message is getting out. Maybe we will see the culture change we need in our lifetimes after all?
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Thomas Beagle,
Thomas, don't be silly. He asked the servers if they would give him the information and they said 'OK!'