Posts by Rich of Observationz
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those with solid scientific studies to back their construction and use
Got any references for that?
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Sorry to interrupt you guys in your plans to build a new Airfix "Syria Attack 2013" collection, but it seems that:
1. The US and Assad are eagerly taking up the opportunity for the latter to give up some nasties to the Russians and obviate the need for any attack
2. Any attack is expected to be limited to sea-launched cruise missiles. Other toys will be kept in the toy box -
the company should clearly have plenty of information about the employees in question
You'd have thought. A logical way for an organisation to proceed when income falls and it can't afford current staff costs would be to look at which employees are giving the least value for money and get rid of them.
This is, however considered illegal/unethical/wrong in the modern world. (I believe that the complementary approach of crossing the dismissed staff's palms with money to leave quietly, ideally to a competitor, is also anathema, at least in any publicly funded body).
So you have a bunch of bullshit around positions, rather than people, being made redundant and then staff reapplying for them - resulting in a company full of people who give good interview.
[This may be part of the reason a small NZ SOE collapsed recently]
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Even if the tests were consistent, there is no evidence I've ever seen that they correlate with actual, real world behaviours.
It's well known that you can make statistical clusters from any random variable you want: skin wrinkles, head shape, starsign, whatever. Mix that up with a bit of confirmation bias, and you're good to go.
The fact that the tests are regarded as useful by right-wing political activists says more about their judgement than the efficacy of the tests, truly.
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City wards aren't all that big. I've moved across two ward boundaries in the five years I've lived in Wellington. It must be a bit hard (especially if one is a tenant) if an attempted political career glues one to a particular postcode indefinitely. Then you've got the fact the earthquake must have made a lot of people find a new place to live.
What are you supposed to do if you've made plans to run for council in X where you live, and then you meet someone or get a job over in Y?
If it's about running for one of those staunch salt of the earth neighbourhoods, can you put a caveat along the lines of: I no longer reside in <shithole>, but still drink 10 stubbies of <insert generic cheap piss brand here> and have had my IQ tested and proven to be in double figures. Certificate attached.
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Sacha,
One thing the Greens have been doing very well and Labour have been largely failing at is to grab the agenda from the lobby journos.
The asset sales referendum is a great example. It got the message across (to at least 400k voters) during the signature collection process, it'll do it again for the vote and again when Key is forced to give two fingers to the electorate by rejecting the result*
So is the whole Dotcom/spying/Banks nexus - although that's as much National taking aim at their own feet.
* Unless Labour are so egregiously dumb as to vote with the Nats and defer the referendum to the general election
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OnPoint: The Gift that Keeps on Making…, in reply to Andrew E,
WebMarshal doesn't (at least at v6.5 https://www.trustwave.com/support/kb/article.aspx?id=12936) try and MITM https traffic. I believe there are tools that do (and one could do this with squid) and a corporate could distribute a root certificate to stop messages appearing (at least in IE). But they'd be very unwise to do so, since the moment a rogue sysop absconded to Bolivia having drained the entire workforce's bank accounts, they'd very likely be liable.
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OnPoint: The Gift that Keeps on Making…, in reply to Paul Campbell,
As I've said before, MIM attacks are likely to be a last resort for governments because of their extreme detectability - if you determine that a site is presenting a different certificate for one connection than another, or that your site is not presenting the certificate you are serving, then there's an MIM attack going on.
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I imagine that there is pressure to escalate the use of the GCSB/NSAs very expensive toys - the Dotcom case is an example - time was when a cop (or even FBI agent) with that sort of case would have been shown the door in short order.
We'll one day get to a world where e.g:
- everyone present (based on cellphone/bank tracking) in a suburb where a serious crime happens will get an email from the cops requesting an account of their movements.- knowing a suspect drug sealer on Facebook will get you pulled over at customs
- criticizing the US government online will get you pulled aside at LAX
- spending too much money on liquor will get you pulled over every time a cop sees your car and has a spare moment
Whether people will lose tolerance at any point in this process remains to be seen.
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Matthew: you are assuming that what they publicise as ok for e.g. Top Secret is what they actually use. There may be a classified specification for handling such data that overrides the published spec.
(Although it would probably leak. But it tends to be the way things work. In the old days, in the UK at least, the level of a security clearance was a secret from the person holding that clearance. Because, secret).