Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 February 10

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February 10

More illegal to hack the server of a bank

• Background: When I worked in a bank, and we got laid off, the regional boss warned us against stealing anything on our last day, because he said that stealing from a bank is a federal crime (he said it tongue in cheek, but was somewhat serious as well). Therefore, stealing from a bank, even a call center, was a worse crime than stealing from a normal call center.
• Question: I've noticed Anonymous doing a lot of hacking recently. Strangely absent, however, is them hacking into banks; my time in the call center showed me that banks aren't always as careful as we'd like to think when it comes to data protection. So I wonder: is it ipso facto more of a crime to hack into a bank than it is another institution, even if the the result of either is the same? (e.g., stealing nothing financial, or stealing the same amount of money).

Of course, this is not in any way, shape, or form a request for legal advice. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

According to the FBI [1], they have jurisdiction over bank robbery. I don't know if that is just the traditional "put the money in the bag" type crime or if it also extends to other crimes involving banks. RudolfRed (talk) 02:55, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It applies to most, if not all, bank thefts. It's certainly not limited to Hollywood style robberies. The federal bank robbery statute's somewhere in Title 18... I read it once... I believe there's a dollar limit but it's remarkably small, and you'll also find that there are other factors that could make an otherwise petty crime a federal one. That said, there's nothing "special" about federal versus state crimes. Most prosecutions are for state crimes. However there are some reasons that federal crimes tend to be seen as more severe, not the least of all federal sentencing policy. Shadowjams (talk) 07:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Anonymous did do some stuff regarding Bank of America [2] but as explained in this source, it didn't really win a lot of points in the media. Note that a 'true' Anonymous action is political, not just a bank robbery - conversely, the goal of a hacker stealing money should be to collude with the victim to keep the crime out of the press, and indeed unreported, so that the victim doesn't suffer the bad publicity of being hacked into and the hacker isn't at risk of jail. Wnt (talk) 08:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Im the states all banks are insured by FDIC, so any theft from a bank is a de facto theft from the federal government, making it a federal crime by default. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Not all banks are FDIC insured, in theory. Federal banks must be, but some state financial institutions do not require FDIC insurance. In practice I'm not sure I've ever heard of a bank that's not FDIC insured. However the "de facto" logic isn't how criminal statutes are written, and it's irrelevant since there's plenty of other statutes that cover it. Shadowjams (talk) 08:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

In mainland China, "theft from financial institution" is a much more serious crime than ordinary theft, purely on the public policy ground of protecting the public's confidence in the financial system. (The larger banks in mainland China are all government owned, and are widely regarded as de facto guaranteed by the government.) "Theft from financial institution" can net you up to life imprisonment, as happened to a man named Xu Ting. In 2008 he took advantage of a faulty ATM to withdraw RMB 170,000, or around US$20,000 based on the conversion rate at the time. Because this exceeded the Supreme Court guideline figure of RMB100,000 (around US$10,000), his charge was upgraded at trial to "Theft from financial institution - extraordinarily large amount", and thus qualified him for a minimum sentence of life, and a maximum sentence of death. (An appeals court later exercised its discretion under the Criminal Code to reduce his sentence to five years and a fine). Here is one article on the case: [3]. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

According to the article of Bank of North Dakota given in Mwalcoff's answer to another question, it isn't FDIC insured although as it's part of the state of North Dakota it's guaranteed by the state's general coffers and the North Dakota taxpayer. Also although original construed as somewhat of a retail bank, it functions more as a central bank. Nil Einne (talk) 23:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Most important people

Who were the 10 most important/influential people of all time? --108.227.30.246 (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That's entirely subjective, and so outside the general remit of the Ref Desk. You could always consult a search engine, however. — Lomn 04:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Rather than rejecting the quite appropriate question, you might check for poll results as to the "most important" or "most influential" people of all time. Such polls may suffers from "recentism." A listing by Michael Hart put Muhammed at number 1, Newton at 2, Jesus at 3, Buddha at 4, Confucius at 5, St. Paul at 6, Ts'ai Lun (the supposed inventor of paper) at 7, Gutenberg at 8, Columbus at 9, and Einstein at 10. (Thomas Edison only rated number 35.) Edison (talk) 05:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow, what timing. I've just been saving this newspaper article about the manipulation of polls to share with students at school who are studying such things. The last part of the article is about a Time magazine poll on this very matter, which identified Kemal Ataturk as the most influential person of the 20th century. Kemal who, you ask? Read the article. HiLo48 (talk) 06:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Adam and Eve were quite important. If we want to be a bit more scientific, Mitochondrial Eve. (Image if you made a time machine and went back in time to kill her!) Mitch Ames (talk) 12:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Then we'd have 7 billion other people here instead of us. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Define "most important". Most popular (the US president is always the most popular person at the time of his inauguration)? People who's contributions resulted in long-term revolutionary changes? And define "influence". Is it a long-term impact or short-term impact? John Locke? He is considered the central figure in modern philosophy. So his impact is long-lasting. Gaddafi? He was all-in-all in a tiny country for a specific period of time, but now nobody wants to know who was Gaddafi. He was influential, but has no long-term influence. As pointed by Edison, most of the lists suffer from recentism. So it is important to a create a list based on the long-term impact of the individuals. Here is what I'll say:

1. Muhammad - well you know his influence

2. Jesus - ditto

3. Galileo - father of modern science

4. Newton - most influential scientist of all time

5. Darwin - it is because of him we (Homo sapiens) know who we are

6. Gutenberg - it is because of him the enlightenment became a reality

7. John Locke - the central figure in modern philosophy, the father of liberalism, the dominant ideology of modern world

8. Adam Smith - father of modern economics

9. Karl Marx - the most influential among political theorists, his ideas divided civilization into two conflicting ideological camps

10. Hitler - responsible for the most destructive war in history, which in turn altered the dynamics of international politics, led to the creation of the UN

But again, it is entirely subjective, no survey in the world can be taken as a final judgement to create a list of "most influential people". --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 13:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

And yeah, Mitochondrial Eve, as said by Mitch Ames, was the most important human being to have walked on Earth. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 13:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Indulging this kinda pseudo intellectualism has got to be more impressionistic on a young mind than all the nuanced, realistic, and accurate history that we argue over here all the time... and then why amongst this do I find out that HiLo is a teacher. -_- Shadowjams (talk) 13:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't quite see the point of that post. I will emphasise that my point in using the article about the survey was to demonstrate how meaningless such polls are. HiLo48 (talk) 20:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, my point wasn't about you, but in agreement with you. But re reading that I see that I didn't say that very well. I meant no offense. Shadowjams (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Cool HiLo48 (talk) 21:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That reflects something of a (popular) misunderstanding about the role and significance of most recent common ancestors, including so-called Mitochondrial Eve (mtEve) and Y-chromosomal Adam (yAdam). Our article on mtEve gives a pretty good introduction to some of the more popular misconceptions, so I won't belabor them here. Among other essential points, mtEve was not the only female alive on Earth at her time, not the only female of that era who has living descendents, and not the only source of our genetic material; she is merely the youngest human being from which we are all descended following only matrilineal lines of descent. (yAdam, who probably lived a hundred thousand years after mtEve, is the equivalent for patrilineal descent. Humanity's most recent common ancestor – the last great-great-great-great-grandparent that we all have in common, and from whom we all still carry at least a little DNA, probably lived less than four thousand years ago.) And don't forget that mtEve wasn't the only woman of her era to carry essentially the same mitochondrial DNA; her mother, and her mother's mother, and so on shared it as well. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be a more fruitful intellectual exercise to try and come up with a useful definition of "important", than to actually try and make up lists. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(EC) I can imagine that there have been lots of biologically important individuals, including original sources of diseases (see index case) and mutations. It would be difficult to identify them, though. Actually, that makes me wonder if the identity of Mitochondrial Eve is ever likely to change - maybe somebody alive now will one day be the most recent common ancestor of all humans. 130.88.73.65 (talk) 14:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

How about you have your students make a list, and then justify/debate about them. The concept may blow some minds, but justifying positions tends to be the touchstone of honest debate, if you're into that. Shadowjams (talk) 14:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree justifying positions does not have any logical value, but if we consider religion to be the most important part of human culture, then Jesus must be the most influential person (Christianity being the largest religion). What I really don't understand is why The 100 places Muhammad and Newton before Jesus. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 15:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I suspect it's because there is independent biographical evidence of the existence of Mohammad and Isaac Newton. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(Does size matter the most?) Jesus is such an interesting example, given that there isn't a whole lot of evidence that he actually existed as one individual human being who did all of the things the Gospels said he did. Not trying to debate that here, but it points to the difficulty of this sort of assessment: if Jesus did not exist, and instead a pastiche of myths, then what does that say about the "importance" of an individual person, if we think Christianity is "important"? What matters more — the actual physical presence of the individual, or what people credit to them afterwards, or do in their name? --Mr.98 (talk) 20:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

More than a page of the book is devoted to defending the choice of ranking Muhammad above Jesus, the section starts out thus:

Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as these differed from Judaism), it was St. Paul who was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proseolyter, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament.

In the following paragraphs, he argues that Muhammad was responsible for the theology, ethical and moral principles of Islam, proseolyting the new faith, and authoring the Moslem holy scriptures. He finds it probable that the relative importance of Muhammad on Islam has been greater than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity. He also emphasises the fact that Muhammad, unlike Jesus, was a secular as well as religious leader, and the driving force behind the Arab conquests. The author states that there is no reason to believe that the Arab conquests would have happened without Muhammad. Jesus is ranked as #3, St. Paul as #6. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:09, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for the clarification. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 11:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, this question is rather subjective and can be anyone's personal opinion. However, people like Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Hitler, Einstein or Newton will usually be in such lists. Time Magazine's Person of the Year is a good place to find possible candidates, but recentism can affect it. Basically, your mileage may vary when it comes to this, but for me, the most important person is Jesus, followed very closely by Muhammad and Hitler. Or perhaps, the most important person is God? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

God is a "person"? (I've still really no idea why Einstein is often named on these things. He was a smart guy and relativity is important for understanding physics, but arguably so are a lot of scientific theories that actually affect our lives more meaningfully from day to day. Nobody lists Faraday or Maxwell, for example. And before you say, "but the atomic bomb!," Einstein didn't invent the bomb, he played a very small role in its creation, it certainly would have been invented had he never lived, and you don't even really need any relativity to make sense of how the bomb works.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:43, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

as mentoned above, St Paul was rather influential. What about George Eastman, though, developed cleap, easy to use electronics, mass advertising and catchy slogans and the idea of creating new improved models every few months, basicly the entire modern consumer industry. 79.66.102.225 (talk) 20:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The person or people who invented The Pill had a huge impact on society. HiLo48 (talk) 21:18, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps also Tim Berners-Lee, since his invention practically changed the way our world worked and how communications worked. Also, James Watt; thanks to his invention, rapid advancements in technology became possible, even if they later didn;t use his invention: without him, it's likely we would still not have much technology, we wouldn't have Internet, cars, electricity, or this very website! It's too bad no one mentioned Jimbo yet... Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 22:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Or Guglielmo Marconi (radio); or John Logie Baird (TV). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course! Without the latter we Australians wouldn't have The Logies. He WAS important. HiLo48 (talk) 23:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Just naming names is not super helpful, if one doesn't have any stated criteria for "importance." Many of these inventions (or something similar enough) would have invented by someone else if these specific individuals hadn't come along. Marconi is an excellent example of that; the reason he, and not Tesla, is credited as the "inventor of radio" has more to do with legal disputes than it does actual history. (I'm not saying Tesla is more important. I'm just saying that if either — or both — of those individuals had never been born, there's no reason to think that radio wouldn't have been invented. It was clearly "in the air" at that time if two folks more or less invent it simultaneously.) --Mr.98 (talk) 13:30, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's just dumb, if you'll pardon my saying so, and all it highlights is how easy it is to be a critic. That downplays the importance, not just of the inventor, but of the invention itself by putting it into the category of "It was obvious, and was just a matter of time". Lots of thing seem obvious in hindsight. What we honour is having the foresight to dream of things nobody else has dreamt of, or very few others have, and then make it happen despite sometimes enormous barriers, including dealing with the fact that most others think you're a lunatic.

As Schopenhauer said: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. You've just exemplified that magnificently. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Technological advances are driven by need or want. Many of the great inventions connected with specific individuals are thus because the individual "won the race" that was being conducted by multiple inventors. The telephone is a good example of that phenomenon. Another example of an achievement is Lindbergh's famous solo flight over the Atlantic. What's much less known is that there were at least two more teams working in the New York area on the same project. Lindy was ready to go, and the others weren't. And unlike the French guy who had disappeared over the Atlantic some days or weeks earlier, Lindy made it all the way across the ocean safely. Tesla didn't get the recognition he deserved because of a lack of marketing skills, which Edison and Marconi were much better at. But the discovery and harnessing of electricity made all of those guys' inventions pretty much inevitable, just maybe not at the same exact point in time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Roch Voisine

I didn't know where to go to get you some information...but you might want to do some more research about the singer Roch Voisine. I just went to his Wikipedia page and noticed that you mention his wife. What isn't on the page however, is that the name you have is his SECOND wife. His first wife's name is Deanna, and he has a few girls with her. I know this because my mom was a friend of hers for years...and she would call and let us know where Roch was and how the kids were. I know there are alot of people in the world and it is hard to know every aspect. i just thought you might want to update his Wikipedia site on here and have the corrections put in. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.70.197.47 (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah the thing is, there is no "you" who writes Wikipedia, it's a joint effort by thousands of individuals. That can include you, if you want it to. You can edit the page yourself and correct the error if you wish. The problem is though that personal knowledge like yours is not really suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. In order to say on his page that Deanna was his first wife, there needs to be a reference in a book, magazine, newspaper or professional website saying that. If you can provide such a reference, please do so. --Viennese Waltz 16:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

atocha size of largest emerald

: ) 

Could you please tell me what the size of the largest emerald that was recovered from the Atocha shipwreck off the florida keys? mariaelena — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.63.149.40 (talk) 20:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

According to this site, "the largest cut emerald from the Atocha", "The Atocha Star weighed 25.87 carats before it was cut." After cutting, it now weighs either 12.73 or 12.72 carats (the site gives both figures). Clarityfiend (talk) 21:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Airline ticket abbreviation

What does "St: OK" mean? It's after NVA: date, NVB: date, and BAG: 1PC. My Google foo keeps me pointing to pages where st. is just street... 88.9.108.139 (talk) 22:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"Status OK" I think, meaning that the booking and flight are all in order. --Viennese Waltz 22:28, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanx. 88.9.108.139 (talk) 00:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)