Sennadar Forums v3

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-21

Best thing to do is just vote them all out next election cycle.

Oh that will probably happen, but since it's a government program it won't get cut even if they are voted out. Nothing harder to rid of then a government program.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by Fel

Author: Fel
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-21

Best thing to do is just vote them all out next election cycle.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-21

Thats my point Spec they can't pysically do it with a set list going in. New sites pop up all the time so they have to use a broad filter if they want to catch anything remotely useful. To even remotely get near their goal they would have to set the software filters to err on the side of banning a site and let a human decide later on if it was right or not. To loose of a filter and you have a PR nightmare and Media Circus in the making. You know somewhere some reporter will come up with a story of an uncovered porn site and a Banned innocent site on top of the slow down, then watch the fur fly once that happens. Either way they will get hammered by the media for either being too draconian or totally ineffectual, or probably both by the media . Then of course there will be the watseful spending story, the corruption story as money disappears and of course the whistle blower story of how some of the watchers watch porn at taxpayers expense while the taxpayer has to jump through hoops at home story. God this type of shit is so predictable with governement programs.

With sites like Amazon before they go and spend their money on setting up special software for one country and the cost of operating it, they would check to see how much money they do get from Australia. IF it isn't worth it they just refuse service to Australian citizens. Type in a Australian Address and boom service denied. Doubtful I know for a country of Australia's size but does Amazon want to set a precedent that they do that and have every little country and their Grandmother comming to them with the same crap? Then there is the little thing of Jurisdiction. Depending on treaties with some of these countries where the sites are they could flip the bird at the Australian government and tell them to stick it. It has happened before to the PRC. The chinese government has tried to block online games going into and out of China and failed miserably because of the sheer volume of games that crop up online and the online game companies told them to cry me a river to the PRC. If the PRC cannot do it with the control they have a Democratic country doesn't stand a chance.

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by Mad Monk

Author: Mad Monk
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-21

There is Biogenic devices on Kimdori Prime because Cybi Queried them back in Subjugation. The Alliance is suppose to have the best sensors in the sector, so could they detect biogenic emissions?

Even if they could detect them (and it could be that only another biogenic system could sense them), they probably would not know that they were biogenic systems. You need to calibrate detectors to understand what you are looking for. Think of all the fun and games radio-astronomers have had over the years - they usually need to point a visible light telescope in the direction of their finds to see what it actually is.

The Energy Beings would probably not be affected by radiation since that is just another form of energy, hell for all we know to them radiation could be like water to us.

And how many people are killed by drowning or floods each year? I am a solid matter being, and I don't know about you, but I'm allergic to penetration by solid objects (like bullets).

Another thing remember it was the Jakkans that pointed out the abbandoned base to Jason, which led to finding that fleet. Could that all have been subterfuge and misdirection on the Consortium's part. It would fit their profile of using others to misdirect their enemies from their true goal. In a lot of ways the Energy Beings are like the Kimdori they manipulate from behind the scenes not fight themselves. They manipulated the Urumi, Trillane and they use the Insectoids horribly,never once putting themselves in danger. They could be doing the same to the Alliance and the Skaa.

I suspect that the Jakkans are trying to play both sides. I agree that the Energy beings will try to get someone else to do their dirty work for them.

What are the chances of rather than someone close to Jason dying, they are captured by the Consortium? This would limit Jason's responses, or it could be that Jason has to take the heartbreaking decision to destroy the enemy vessel with his loved one on it to protect the secrets of the Karrines.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by Spec8472

Author: Spec8472
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-21

There is a huge difference between filtering out a Porn site and filtration of a Online encyclopedia.I cant believe that they would equate them.A encyclopedia is just plain facts and figures, whereas a porn site is obviously not.On the other hand ,just because you want to censor some deviant style sites doesn't make you a Big Brother lover.

To a human, yes, the difference is incredibly obvious - to a computer that's trying to process a thousand other requests this second, it's a much MUCH harder task.
Yes, we could whitelist Wikipedia straight off - but that's just one site that's got useful knowledge.

Google are able to apply a lot of very sophisticated machine learning algorithms to indexing the internet, and are able to infer a lot of information about what type of content is on a page. But even with Google's hundreds of thousands or even millions of servers they are not able to do this in real time. Yes, they can do some search indexing in close to real time - but that's only for news stories.

Even though Google has one of biggest (if not the biggest) teams of incredibly bright Machine Learning folks, they'd still baulk at correctly identifying content that's rated R18+ or above according to the OFLC with any consistant degree of confidence.

The best filter providers can do is freqency counting words, and applying some basic word-distance calculations - more than that takes too long, and with thousands of other requests needing to be processed per second, there's only so much CPU power you can assign to processing a single request.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by Spec8472

Author: Spec8472
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-21

See Amazon.com would get banned because they sell autobiographies that in some of them descripe just what Spec listed.
(snip)
The only way to get them is to use a very wide range of key words to Ban the site. Something a Computer can do after a program is written form it. It would just log on from site to site scan for banned words and move on. Once the conditions are met to Ban a site it automatically copies the URL to the Ban list.

I doubt Amazon would get banned - however it may be required to enforce Office of Film and Literature Classification* standards and not sell material that was Refused Classification* to Australians.

With regards to the keyword filter - they're not talking about pro-actively crawling the web and blacklisting sites using some spider software (although, that may be done also), they're talking about when you type in a URL into your web-browser, or click on a link and your browser requests a page - the filter would kick in, and scan the page as it was being delivered to you. There's other steps before the dynamic filter (like checking against the existing blacklists), but that's one of the killers.

Now, for non-tech savvy folk it might seem like an okay task to set up a bunch of beefy servers that filter this content. After all - if I can install filter software on my home PC and it makes little or no noticable difference to a web browsing experience, then it can't be a particularly onorous task. And that's true, to a certain extent.

What makes it such a difficult task is that you'll have a huge list of words to scan for - and you'll need to scan every single request that comes through - not just 'Give me http://www.example.com' but also 'Give me http://www.example.com/image.jpg' and 'Give me http://www.example.com/script.js'. If you're using Firefox, right click on a page and go View Page Info, then click on the Media tab. On this site alone there's like 30 images - each one of those would need to be checked - sure it might be an image, but the filter will still have all those requests pass through it - even if it does absolutely nothing to it. Add to that probably half a dozen style sheets and scripts that make web pages work, and most sites will weigh in at about 50-100 individual requests, just to service one page.

Of course, people browsing the web is only part of the traffic that would be monitored by the filters - Many many applications exchange data over HTTP (the network protocol that delivers all website content to your browser). Take for example those applications that let you upload photos to Flickr - they speak HTTP. Got a widget that shows the current weather or stock prices on your computer? Speaks HTTP. How about your computer automatically checking for updates. Also HTTP. RSS Reader? HTTP. Game console with an internet connection? HTTP. Use iTunes? HTTP. What about an iPod Touch / iPhone? Lots of HTTP. Media Centre or TV that downloads an EPG? Yet again, speaks HTTP.

The vast majority of applications that you use to do things online are speaking HTTP - because it's easy and relatively efficient at what it does. All of those applications and devices that speak HTTP will generate requests that will be scanned by the filter.

I think you can see where this is heading, right? There's an aboslute mountain of requests every second, many of which are quite legitimately requesting or sending content over the internet. All of which need to be scanned.

For a large ISP to scan millions of requests per second at anything close to real-time, they would need hundreds, if not thousands of very expensive servers, consuming huge amounts of power to run. The Government sure isn't going to pay for that, so what'll happen? ISPs will put costs up. Because the filtering can't happen without you noticing a slowdown, internet access speeds will drop - most noticably during peak times.

So, we'll have more expensive and slower internet access which will semi-randomly block access to legitimate sites because it matched a few wrong keywords for what? Anyone wanting to access something illegal isn't going to be hampered, they're using either Encrypted HTTP (Slower than regular HTTP, but faster than filtered HTTP) which by it's nature can't be filtered, unless the government is willing to completely kill all online commerce**.

The sum total use of the ISP level filter is a 'feel good' blanket for concerned parents, and won't do anything to stop pornography of any kind being distributed or accessed on the web.

One of the nastier side effects of this filter that really SHOULD have parents worried is that anyone that IS doing something illegal (say, distributing child pornography) will be driven to using more advanced encryption to bypass any filtering.
Thus attempts by the Australian Federal Police to perform an "internet tap" will only get to see an encrypted stream of communications.

* = OFLC is the Australian Government department responsible for applying classification ratings to books, videos, films, magazines, tv, video games, etc in Australia. They have a bunch of ratings - however material that is Refused Classification is not permitted to be sold or distributed within Australia. The OFLC's standards also apply to Internet sites.

** If you're wondering what I mean, look up Man in the Middle Attack - that's how they'd break SSL to filter it - by intercepting communications prior to the channel being established. All modern browsers, and anything else that's well developed and is using SSL will see that the connection isn't secured correctly, and refuse to let you continue. SSL Encryption is what makes Internet Banking and Online Shopping possible, by protecting your confidential details as they're being sent to the server. If a filter were able to perform a MITM attack, then there'd be nothing stopping Mary Malicious Attacker from doing something very similar, and capturing all your details.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by dellstart

Author: dellstart
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-20

There is a huge difference between filtering out a Porn site and filtration of a Online encyclopedia.I cant believe that they would equate them.A encyclopedia is just plain facts and figures, whereas a porn site is obviously not.On the other hand ,just because you want to censor some deviant style sites doesn't make you a Big Brother lover.

The probelm being to set up a filter this massive they can't ban by site they have to filter by words.
And for what it's worth, Illegal content isn't just Porn - it can include sites describing personal accounts of substance abuse, anorexia, abortions, and others. Plus, given the 'dynamic' keyword filtering - any site happening to trigger a few banned words would also be blocked too.

The 'opt-out' portion will relate only to material that is rated R18+ and comes with an age verification system

See Amazon.com would get banned because they sell autobiographies that in some of them descripe just what Spec listed.

Online encyclopedias could get banned because you will run across important landmark law cases like Roe v Wade which had the word abortion in it.

Web Md could get banned because of the medical terms Vagina and/or Penis.

Now to get "off" the list the way Spec is referring to it you must have age verification, most likely by Credit card (CC), before you actually enter the site. What Sites are specifically set up that way? Porn sites. So little Johhny could sneak into daddy's wallet late at night copy his CC number and experation date and get a "porn" site unbanned on his home computer but legit ones still be banned.

Remember they want to ban ALL of the Porn Sites and they don't have enough time, money or people to have them sit there day after day finding the URL's or IP's of these sites and filtering them that way. Besides new sites pop up all the time and those URL's wouldn't be listed. The only way to get them is to use a very wide range of key words to Ban the site. Something a Computer can do after a program is written form it. It would just log on from site to site scan for banned words and move on. Once the conditions are met to Ban a site it automatically copies the URL to the Ban list. Basically they are taking the Tech the NSA uses to scan the airwaves to search for terrorists and using it to find Porn. People got up in arms over that thinking "Big Brother", This is far worse they are actively seeking censorship and not on a selective basis. This type of system wouldn't work in the US, the Supreme Court would have so many suits drop on their desks it would make your head spin.

It is quite a devilish problem. No doubt about it.
Yeah , The US is quite a different kettle of fish. Though the right to bear arms , has been taken a beating lately.Who says there isn't censorship over here , just ask the Tabaco companies why they get so severly taxed , more than other substances

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

consortium want biogenic computers correct, you can only get them on karis, but did the kimdori not have similar computes, they are not covered by indictors, and the kimdori genetic are essential to create generations, they are also one of the most advanced races around and a threat as they have declared sides and are master spies working against them. also, while the kimdori live in radiation that could kill any intruders, does the consortium care how many insects need to die to get what they want, also would energy beings get affected by radiation, kimdori aso only have the defence fleet, why have any other defences if no one can reach you

There is a good point there. There is Biogenic devices on Kimdori Prime because Cybi Queried them back in Subjugation. The Alliance is suppose to have the best sensors in the sector, so could they detect biogenic emissions? The Jakkans are part of the Alliance and they have been helping the Consortium and they are immune to radiation so they could crew ships. The Energy Beings would probably not be affected by radiation since that is just another form of energy, hell for all we know to them radiation could be like water to us.

Another thing remember it was the Jakkans that pointed out the abbandoned base to Jason, which led to finding that fleet. Could that all have been subterfuge and misdirection on the Consortium's part. It would fit their profile of using others to misdirect their enemies from their true goal. In a lot of ways the Energy Beings are like the Kimdori they manipulate from behind the scenes not fight themselves. They manipulated the Urumi, Trillane and they use the Insectoids horribly,never once putting themselves in danger. They could be doing the same to the Alliance and the Skaa.

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by dellstart

Author: dellstart
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

consortium want biogenic computers correct, you can only get them on karis, but did the kimdori not have similar computes, they are not covered by indictors, and the kimdori genetic are essential to create generations, they are also one of the most advanced races around and a threat as they have declared sides and are master spies working against them. also, while the kimdori live in radiation that could kill any intruders, does the consortium care how many insects need to die to get what they want, also would energy beings get affected by radiation, kimdori aso only have the defence fleet, why have any other defences if no one can reach you

Firstly its better to be safe than sorry
Secondly, there may be time when you need a fleet or to show a presence.

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by dellstart

Author: dellstart
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

I think it will be the mother of all cliffhangers, since the next part is called tribulation Fel will end it in a cliffhanger leaving us to wonder who dies.
you know lately, I am wondering if its going to be kumi, shes central enough and her loss would defiantly devastate the House.Then again ,It might be one of the Kids , even the Heir apparent himself(Though I hope not).Cause that would certainly destabilize things, and we know how much our Master of Evil loves Chaos.

Well Fel has mentioned once before that Rann and Shya do marry and Rann ends up with his own problems, so unless he changed his mind it wouldn't be Rann.

Then there is all the other kids. Notice how Fel wrote so much about them in Unification, even bringing in more. Could that be a signal that there is where the tragedy lies? or just Fel laying down the false trail to catch the wary off guard?

Who says the loss has to be a Faey to be a central character? What if the loss was Zaa, what effect would that have on Jason? Zaa is a central character not just by what scenes she is in but by who and what she represents.

Yes I have enrolled at the Fel Institute for Evil.

yes , that would do it.

maybe a explosion on the moon , wiping out Tim , Myelena and little pippy as well! Now that's a wicked blow as well!!

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by SYED

Author: SYED
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

consortium want biogenic computers correct, you can only get them on karis, but did the kimdori not have similar computes, they are not covered by indictors, and the kimdori genetic are essential to create generations, they are also one of the most advanced races around and a threat as they have declared sides and are master spies working against them. also, while the kimdori live in radiation that could kill any intruders, does the consortium care how many insects need to die to get what they want, also would energy beings get affected by radiation, kimdori aso only have the defence fleet, why have any other defences if no one can reach you

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

I think it will be the mother of all cliffhangers, since the next part is called tribulation Fel will end it in a cliffhanger leaving us to wonder who dies.
you know lately, I am wondering if its going to be kumi, shes central enough and her loss would defiantly devastate the House.Then again ,It might be one of the Kids , even the Heir apparent himself(Though I hope not).Cause that would certainly destabilize things, and we know how much our Master of Evil loves Chaos.

Well Fel has mentioned once before that Rann and Shya do marry and Rann ends up with his own problems, so unless he changed his mind it wouldn't be Rann.

Then there is all the other kids. Notice how Fel wrote so much about them in Unification, even bringing in more. Could that be a signal that there is where the tragedy lies? or just Fel laying down the false trail to catch the wary off guard?

Who says the loss has to be a Faey to be a central character? What if the loss was Zaa, what effect would that have on Jason? Zaa is a central character not just by what scenes she is in but by who and what she represents.

Yes I have enrolled at the Fel Institute for Evil.

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by dellstart

Author: dellstart
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

Found this quote, guess it fits here

People are looking for intelligent life in space. They've got their priorities wrong. I'm still looking for some on Earth.

lol

I hope this person never looks in the mirror, because they will be highly disappointed in themselves, might become dpressed and well you know where that could lead.

yepppers, we know oh boy do we know. LOl

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by dellstart

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

Found this quote, guess it fits here

People are looking for intelligent life in space. They've got their priorities wrong. I'm still looking for some on Earth.

lol

I hope this person never looks in the mirror, because they will be highly disappointed in themselves, might become dpressed and well you know where that could lead.

Re: The Galatic Boogeyman? by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

Furry funding isn't a factor since all the initial research is military in scope. Here is some things from our own past.

The US government spent a lot of money funding research into Radar in the late 30's and early 40's. The company that did most of the research was the Raytheon Corp. They made a lot of money during WWII selling radar sets to the military but once the war was over the demand dropped. So what do you do? You find other uses for that tech hence Raytheon invented the Microwave oven.

http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html

Now lets take a look at the invention of the computer. Do you know what the first computer was invented for? To calculate artillary trajectories for the US Army. Thats right folks the military are the ones that drove early computer science. We have all heard of "Super Computers" but who do you think drove that research Universities or the CIA/NSA? Again it was the government that did that with the CIA/NSA needing them for code breaking. So again a piece of modern everyday tech came out of Military research

Just look at the two world wars. Airplanes were novelty items before WWI, the Military drove the research on them and by the end of WWI planes made leaps forward. Airplane Tech stalled during the intermining years until just before WWII when people once again started looking for better planes to kill each other with. By the end of WWII we had the first true cargo and passenger planes but the Military didn't need them anymore. From that excess of military equipment came the first airlines and cargo carriers. 1950 saw the Korean war and the need again for better planes and brought us the Jet age. Comericial applications followed in due course. That is how in less then 60 years we went from horse drawn carriage to the Jet age, War.

Cars were the same as planes. Prior to WWII most Americans had never driven a Car before but after seeing what Automobiles could do (read Jeep). When the troops came home after the war the car craze started.

Then there was the whole Space Race tech that was developed that ended up in the private sector.

Now lets look at some Faey Tech.

What do you think the rational to develope the Stargates was commercial or military? More then likey it was Military based on it allowed the Empress to get her fleets from one end of the Empire to the other very quickly, which meant she didn't need as many ships after that. Once you have the stargates she wouldn't need to keep a squadron hovering over almost every planet to keep the Nobles in line. The Commercial side was just a nice bonus.

Composite materials needed to make the Navy ships, gets spun off into commercial shipping and other uses, just like how Composite Materials was first used in the Have Blue project (Stealth) in the 60's. Now Composite Materials have all kinds of commercial uses such as wrapping around Concrete Highway supports in earthquake prone areas.

Empire wide comm systems would have been a must for the Imperial Navy and Government so they would have driven that research, now every Imperial citizen can call anyone across the Imperium.

Just like with our computer research the military would have been in the forefront of computer science.

All you do is look back to Subjugation and look at who was recruiting Jason.
Most of them revolved around Jason’s lack of interest in trying to get placed into Black Ops (where most weapons and top-secret military systems were designed) or R&D (where everything was designed).
“Who are you?” he asked bluntly.
“Lieutenant Commander Lirrin Ulala,” she said, extending a blue hand. “And I’m very excited to meet you, Jason Fox
“Why would you come to see me? I’m just a student.”
“That’s exactly why I came to see you,” she chuckled. “My division handles recruiting students into R&D

R&D researchs everything not just Military systems but the Recruitment officer is a Lt Commander in the Imperial Navy. That ought to tell you something right there that the Faey military has a hand in all research in the Imperium. The Faey system is where the majority of research is funded by the Military and any non secret applications get sold to the Ministary of Technology and companies buy the patent from there. Just think of the Itchers.

Once you develope a Military Tech the company that did it then takes that research and branchs off that to find commercial applications. That is how a lot of high tech goes, you need better systems to fight wars, you fund research, the research makes whatever it is, the company that did the initial research looks for commercial applications off that research. Overall Tech level increases. The Karinnes gave them some old Karinne ideas, the Imperium in the form of R&D and Black Ops branched off that initial research.

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by dellstart

Re: Unification - Chapter 7 - Spoilers by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: Subjugation & Insurrection
Date: 2008-11-20

Fel (since he is the author of the Universe) set them up in Subjugation in the border area of Northern England/Southern Scotland.
“I studied,” Molly chuckled. “The McGee family is from northern England and southern Scotland. They were a lowland clan from Scotland originally. So, that means you’re one of the English McGees. So, if we’re looking for a common ancestor between my Ian, Tim, and Temika, it sounds like England might be the place to look. Especially because Fox is also a British family name,” she added, looking at Jason. “The Foxes are from England, Scotland, and Ireland.”

Yes a alot of stuff chnages over time and yes they moved into those areas of Great Britain, however the central theme of Clan lifestyle didn't change for the Celts. The Celts were very unusual for their time, unfortunately they ended up competing against the Roman Empire for space in Europe.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by boballab

Author: boballab
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-20

There is a huge difference between filtering out a Porn site and filtration of a Online encyclopedia.I cant believe that they would equate them.A encyclopedia is just plain facts and figures, whereas a porn site is obviously not.On the other hand ,just because you want to censor some deviant style sites doesn't make you a Big Brother lover.

The probelm being to set up a filter this massive they can't ban by site they have to filter by words.
And for what it's worth, Illegal content isn't just Porn - it can include sites describing personal accounts of substance abuse, anorexia, abortions, and others. Plus, given the 'dynamic' keyword filtering - any site happening to trigger a few banned words would also be blocked too.

The 'opt-out' portion will relate only to material that is rated R18+ and comes with an age verification system

See Amazon.com would get banned because they sell autobiographies that in some of them descripe just what Spec listed.

Online encyclopedias could get banned because you will run across important landmark law cases like Roe v Wade which had the word abortion in it.

Web Md could get banned because of the medical terms Vagina and/or Penis.

Now to get "off" the list the way Spec is referring to it you must have age verification, most likely by Credit card (CC), before you actually enter the site. What Sites are specifically set up that way? Porn sites. So little Johhny could sneak into daddy's wallet late at night copy his CC number and experation date and get a "porn" site unbanned on his home computer but legit ones still be banned.

Remember they want to ban ALL of the Porn Sites and they don't have enough time, money or people to have them sit there day after day finding the URL's or IP's of these sites and filtering them that way. Besides new sites pop up all the time and those URL's wouldn't be listed. The only way to get them is to use a very wide range of key words to Ban the site. Something a Computer can do after a program is written form it. It would just log on from site to site scan for banned words and move on. Once the conditions are met to Ban a site it automatically copies the URL to the Ban list. Basically they are taking the Tech the NSA uses to scan the airwaves to search for terrorists and using it to find Porn. People got up in arms over that thinking "Big Brother", This is far worse they are actively seeking censorship and not on a selective basis. This type of system wouldn't work in the US, the Supreme Court would have so many suits drop on their desks it would make your head spin.

Re: Attention Aussie Internet Users by Mysterious

Author: Mysterious
Forum: General Discussion
Date: 2008-11-20

Does anybody know when this thing is going to come up?