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How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

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Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#101

Post by joubert »

clpimage wrote: post #100
ObieJazz wrote: post #5

If you're going to harass a group of people it's a lot more tasteful to target one that isn't already persecuted.

/Offtopic /Rant /Flag Really? How are gays and lesbians persecuted? Gays now have more rights than most other people. I would rather be gay than be fat. And they have that universal excuse ("you're firing me because I am gay?") that they use in any situation (almost as good as the “you're because I am black/a woman/Jewish/a vegetarian?). Why don't everybody just leave everybody else the f*ck alone? It is because gay…

Not persecuted? Are you kidding me?

Gays are SPECIFICALLY excluded from many legal rights heterosexuals enjoy.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#102

Post by clpimage »

joubert wrote: post #101
clpimage wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/Offtopic /Rant /Flag Really? How are gays and lesbians persecuted? Gays now have more rights than most other people. I would rather be gay than be fat. And they have that universal excuse ("you're firing me because I am gay?") that they use in any situation (almost as good as the “you're because I am black/a woman/Jewish/a vegetarian?). Why don't everybody just leave everybody else the f*ck alone? It is because gay…

Not persecuted? Are you kidding me? Gays are SPECIFICALLY excluded from many legal rights heterosexuals enjoy.

Like what? They can vote and they could have voted since Licoln.

One of the few things that they whine about is "marraige". Well, uhm... start your own church and start marrying people - you don't need the government for that.

(They do want the state to name it marraige instead of "civil unions" because that would force people to accept them).

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#103

Post by joubert »

clpimage wrote: post #102
joubert wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not persecuted? Are you kidding me? Gays are SPECIFICALLY excluded from many legal rights heterosexuals enjoy.

Like what? They can vote and they could have voted since Licoln. One of the few things that they whine about is "marraige". Well, uhm... start your own church and start marrying people - you don't need the government for that. (They do want the state to name it marraige instead of "civil unions" because that would force people to accept them).

Marriage is a legal union which is specifically denied to gays in the overwhelming majority of states in the US. The issue is not a religious one or a question of acceptance, it is a question of equality before the law.

Marriage confers many benefits, including financial, guardianship (of children), visitation rights, control over partner's affairs when the latter is incapacitated, etc.

At the Federal level, the US prohibits same-sex couples, even if they are married in another country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_marriage) to sponsor each other for immigration.

These are things heterosexuals can take for granted, but our gay friends cannot.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#104

Post by clpimage »

joubert wrote: post #103
clpimage wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? They can vote and they could have voted since Licoln. One of the few things that they whine about is "marraige". Well, uhm... start your own church and start marrying people - you don't need the government for that. (They do want the state to name it marraige instead of "civil unions" because that would force people to accept them).

Marriage is a legal union which is specifically denied to gays in the overwhelming majority of states in the US. The issue is not a religious one or a question of acceptance, it is a question of equality before the law. Marriage confers many benefits, including financial, guardianship (of children), visitation rights, control over partner's affairs when the latter is incapacitated, etc. At the Federal level, the US p…

> it is a question of equality before the law.

Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Gay and straight are bound by the same laws - if a gay person ever wants to marry a woman he can (no questions asked). There is not two sets of laws - the tax law is the same (yet no one worries about that).

I would personally like to see the state absolve marraige and leave everything at civil unions. The only reason why the state should even have that is to keep track of children.

> Marriage confers many benefits, including financial

Uhm... yeah. We should therefore discriminate against people who are not married? If there is a benefit provided it costs someone something (in this case the burden is on unmarried people).

> control over partner's affairs when the latter is incapacitated

Uhm.. tried having a signed letter to the appointed executor? This can be solved within 5 minutes with a printer and 5 signatures.

> At the Federal level, the US prohibits same-sex couples, even if they are married in another country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_marriage) to sponsor each other for immigration.

So, this is nothing major. The USA also have quotas for certain countries. Does that mean that the USA is racist towards that country?

The USA also have requirements for education levels. Some countries (esp. Australia) is fairly strict against people with transmittable diseases (e.g. AIDS). Does that mean that they discriminate against sick or stupid people?

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#105

Post by joubert »

clpimage wrote: post #104
joubert wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage is a legal union which is specifically denied to gays in the overwhelming majority of states in the US. The issue is not a religious one or a question of acceptance, it is a question of equality before the law. Marriage confers many benefits, including financial, guardianship (of children), visitation rights, control over partner's affairs when the latter is incapacitated, etc. At the Federal level, the US p…

> it is a question of equality before the law. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Gay and straight are bound by the same laws - if a gay person ever wants to marry a woman he can (no questions asked). There is not two sets of laws - the tax law is the same (yet no one worries about that). I would personally like to see the state absolve marraige and leave everything at civil unions. The only reason why the sta…

> if a gay person ever wants to marry a woman he can

In the same way that you, presumably, wouldn't want to marry/sleep with someone of the same sex, so a homosexual wouldn't want to marry someone of the opposite sex.

The question is, why do State governments specifically prevent same-sex unions? There are already 7 countries that have gay marriage.

From marriage all the other legal benefits flow.

> I would personally like to see the state absolve marraige and leave everything at civil union

Agreed - but not limited to only heterosexuals.

> Uhm.. tried having a signed letter to the appointed executor

Why do gays have to do extra work that heterosexuals get "for free"?

> So, this is nothing major. The USA also have quotas for certain countries.

Imagine the following: you are American, and marry the love of your life, a Canadian, in Canada. Now, if you are a man + woman, you are allowed to bring your spouse into the US, but if you are a same-sex married couple (yes, Canada has gay marriage), then you cannot.

This has nothing to do with quotas, or "profiling" for numbers or against health-risks.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#106

Post by clpimage »

joubert wrote: post #105
clpimage wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is a question of equality before the law. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Gay and straight are bound by the same laws - if a gay person ever wants to marry a woman he can (no questions asked). There is not two sets of laws - the tax law is the same (yet no one worries about that). I would personally like to see the state absolve marraige and leave everything at civil unions. The only reason why the sta…

> if a gay person ever wants to marry a woman he can In the same way that you, presumably, wouldn't want to marry/sleep with someone of the same sex, so a homosexual wouldn't want to marry someone of the opposite sex. The question is, why do State governments specifically prevent same-sex unions? There are already 7 countries that have gay marriage. From marriage all the other legal benefits flow. > I would personall…

> State governments specifically prevent same-sex unions?

Uhm... Can't homosexuals have civil unions? Also - what is the use for the state? It does not need to keep track of the offspring.

> Why do gays have to do extra work that heterosexuals get "for free"?

It takes 5 minutes. Most straight and sane people do it in any way - it is simply a good practice (just like writing a will).

> but if you are a same-sex married couple (yes, Canada has gay marriage),

If the person you married was a woman with AIDS (or if you have a child with AIDS) you will also most likely not be able to come into Australia.

Also - if you benefit gay couples you conversely discriminate against 2 single people.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#107

Post by joubert »

clpimage wrote: post #106
joubert wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if a gay person ever wants to marry a woman he can In the same way that you, presumably, wouldn't want to marry/sleep with someone of the same sex, so a homosexual wouldn't want to marry someone of the opposite sex. The question is, why do State governments specifically prevent same-sex unions? There are already 7 countries that have gay marriage. From marriage all the other legal benefits flow. > I would personall…

> State governments specifically prevent same-sex unions? Uhm... Can't homosexuals have civil unions? Also - what is the use for the state? It does not need to keep track of the offspring. > Why do gays have to do extra work that heterosexuals get "for free"? It takes 5 minutes. Most straight and sane people do it in any way - it is simply a good practice (just like writing a will). > but if you are a same-sex marrie…

> Uhm... Can't homosexuals have civil unions

No, that's exactly my point. In most states there is no concept of civil unions for homosexuals. And furthermore, they also don't recognize civil unions from other states. This is in stark contrast to recognition of heterosexual unions.

> Also - what is the use for the state?

It is not about the state; it is about individual liberty.

> It does not need to keep track of the offspring.

Not sure I understand what you mean?

> It takes 5 minutes. Most straight and sane people do it in any way - it is simply a good practice (just like writing a will).

So maybe the government (state and Federal) should simply not recognize Marriage AT ALL?

> If the person you married was a woman with AIDS

Homesexuality is not a disease, dude.

> Also - if you benefit gay couples you conversely discriminate against 2 single people.

Single people choose not to get married. But with gays, the state forces them to stay single.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#108

Post by tdavis »

cduan wrote: post #89
gojomo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 48-72 hours, some books appeared fewer places on Amazon's site. Many of those same books got lots of extra attention from elsewhere, as examples of affected titles. So some authors probably lost a little, others gained a little (by either being examples, or simply filling the slots emptied by affected titles). If the loss to specific titles was significant, Amazon could easily restore the previous balance with a…

Perhaps we are forgetting that Amazon is a victim as well. If Amazon is unable to seek punishment against malicious users of its site, it is forced to spend its time and money patching security holes and preventing future attacks, in addition to repairing lost good will from customers and authors. It always surprises me how quick people are to jump to the conclusion that the website operator is at fault for these sor…

Even if one could accept that Amazon cannot possibly plug all vulnerabilities and should not be expected to do so against all attacks, we're still left with the obvious mistake of implicitly entrusting their users with the ability to -- automatically and without proper vetting -- alter whether or not certain items display on certain areas of their site. This fact, given automation via a bug or not, means that the tactic could have been used more maliciously and more covertly to bring additional damage (say, by getting an author's book delisted).

At the end of the day, do I think Amazon really deserved to be "taught a lesson"? No; he could have just contacted them with the exploit and been done with it. Could it have been worse? Most likely, yes. Plus, I found the resulting e-uproar to be quite hilarious. To think, people actually believed Amazon would intentionally and openly discriminate against those groups out of no where... it's very laughable, you must admit.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#109

Post by axod »

stcredzero wrote: post #51
axod wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company like Amazon should be able to deal with DDOS and CSFR in it's stride though. They should present absolutely no challenge. The correct response IMHO is for Amazon to realize they were stupid, and fix it. If you sue etc you put out the signal that being stupid is fine - you'll be able to sue someone if they take advantage of your stupidity. But then we live in an age where if someone doesn't tell you explicit…

So the victim's capabilities are to be taken into account? If Mrs. Smith was trained as a ninja guard, trying to abscond with her mattress stash is ok? I don't buy it. Also, you can argue that not suing is sending out the wrong message -- that manipulating the flagging mechanism is cool, so long as you're a cool, clever hacker. If I was running a business, and my employee left a storage shed unlocked, I shouldn't pro…

If I hide all of my money on my front lawn in a bag, I can't really be that surprised when it gets stolen.

Re: How to cause moral outrage from the entire Internet in ten lines of code

#110

Post by davidw »

ibsulon wrote: post #64
tdavis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could also be seen as a free security consultant. What he did basically amounted to a victimless crime, but could have possibly been used for something worse. If Amazon has one CSRF vulnerability via an improper use of GET, there may well be more. This incident may help them tighten their systems against more malicious attacks.

Amazon is losing a lot of business in the GLBT community, historically a reliable demographic group in both online spending and books. (This actually wouldn't be so bad if they had been more forthcoming, and quickly made a statement apologizing profusely. However, just saying that there's a "glitch" after customer support had suggested that much of the material was indeed adult in various posts hovering around, this…

As an aside, if you ever go anywhere near Portland, Oregon, go to Powell's, and don't forget to visit Powell's technical too. I really miss those stores (I miss less all the rain that makes sitting inside and reading a compelling alternative so much of the time...)
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