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Comment Re:Victim's pain is less than a false allegation? (Score 0) 502

People are saying that someone who falsely accuses rape (which happens very, very frequently) doesn't suffer as much as the victim, who has done nothing legally wrong and just wants to go back to their life.

http://barcc.org/information/facts/stats

"Nearly 60% of rape/sexual assault victims did not report their victimization to the police in 2006, according to National Crime Victimization Survey data."

"95 percent of sexual assaults that were reported were determined to be substantiated with sound evidence." - this according to the FBI

Before you make claims about how often false reporting actually happens, it's worth looking at the statistics. Talk to somebody who works at a rape crisis center or DV shelter, and you'll see that, while they typically agree with you that false reporting spoils our justice system for the VAST MAJORITY of legitimate victims (men and women), they'll also cite the above statistics and many more which prove that it's a rapist's world, not a victim's world.

Your friend's story is moving, and the institution involved acted very prematurely in kicking him out. They likely did this because they're so afraid to talk about assault openly that they'd rather stigmatize it using him as an example in the hope that it will all just go away and they'll never have to think about it again.

Here's a newsflash - assault won't go away until we don't allow it any more as a society. Go visit the link above. Think about those statistics, and then think about your behavior and how it might be enabling for potential perpetrators. Have you ever stood by and done nothing while somebody you know, or somebody at a frat party you were standing next to, made plans to get a girl drunk and "nail" her? You just allowed a potential rape to happen, and you're at fault for not informing the fellow that he was planning a rape.

It's time to stop blaming victims, and start talking about these issues openly and calmly instead of with the irrational bias of fear and uncertainty.

Security

Bridging the Gap Between Hackers and Academics 50

Tal Garfinkel writes "There has long been a disconnect between academic computer security and underground forums like Black Hat and Phrack. A new USENIX-sponsored workshop called WOOT (Workshop On Offensive Technologies) is looking to bridge that gap by providing a high-quality, peer-reviewed forum for attack papers, with top reviewers from the academic, open source, commercial IT, and information warfare communities. Got a great attack paper? See if it makes the cut at WOOT."
NASA

NASA Tackles Ethics of Deep-Space Exploration 456

TheTony writes "With long-term projects like manned Mars exploration on the horizon, NASA has begun discussing previously taboo subjects. Ethical and practical questions involving illness, death, genetic profiling, and astronaut relations and behavior in space need to be addressed, as NASA begins to consider new policies with these extended missions in mind." From the article: "One topic that is evidently too hot to handle: How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?"
The Internet

CSS Turns 10 Years Old 176

An anonymous reader writes "Cascading Style Sheets celebrate their tenth anniversary this week. The W3C put together the CSS10 site in recognition of this milestone with a Hall of Fame, essays from the past decade, a gallery, and more." I was glad to see the CSS Zen Garden selected for the Hall of Fame, and disappointed (but not surprised) that no browser on my computer correctly renders the Acid2 test.
Databases

MySQL Quietly Drops Support For Debian Linux [UPDATED] 339

volts writes "MySQL quietly deprecated support for most Linux distributions on October 16, when its 'MySQL Network' support plan was replaced by 'MySQL Enterprise.' MySQL now supports only two Linux distributions — Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. We learned of this when MySQL declined to sell us support for some new Debian-based servers. Our sales rep 'found out from engineering that the current Enterprise offering is no longer supported on Debian OS.' We were told that 'Generic Linux' in MySQL's list of supported platforms means 'generic versions of the implementations listed above'; not support for Linux in general." Update: 12/13 20:52 GMT by J : MySQL AB's Director of Architecture (and former Slash programmer) Brian Aker corrects an apparent miscommunication in a blog post: "we are just starting to roll out [Enterprise] binaries... We don't build binaries for Debian in part because the Debian community does a good job themselves... If you call MySQL and you have support we support you if you are running Debian (the same with Suse, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu and others)... someone in Sales was left with the wrong information"

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