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Australian Government Ignoring Problems With Proposed Filters
halll7 writes with an update to the proposed Australian national firewall we discussed recently. According to the BBC, "The official watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), has been conducting laboratory tests of six filtering products, and the government plans a live trial soon. ... After its recent trials, ACMA reported significant improvements on earlier studies. The network degradation on one product was less than 2%, although two products were in excess of 75%." Now, Ars Technica reports that "an Australian newspaper has uncovered documents showing that the government minister responsible for the program has ignored performance and accuracy problems with the filters, then tried to suppress criticism of the plan by private citizens." The EFA has a great deal to say in opposition of these plans.
In the early 70s I made several trips to Australia for work, and was blown away by the size of the country, and the wonderful people. For a while, I seriously considered emigrating there... It pains me to see how authoritarian it has become.. And of course, my native USA is right on its heels.. I'm terrified about what's gonna happen to America if (oh hell, its when) Comrade Obama and his neo-communist (was US Democrat party) get in power.. And as the parent poster said, the "shopping list" of alternate countries is getting ever shorter.... I suspect the last 20 or so years of my life (am 58 now) will be in an ever increasing copy of what the old Soviet Union was like..... I cry..
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Worthless. Really? Let's consider then: How would you watch Heroes HD without broadcast television? Could you watch it via NBC.com? No, not really. 30 million people watch that show on Monday night, and it streams at 15 megabit/second over the airwaves. That's approximately 500,000 gigabit of bandwidth in total. No way could NBC.com or any other website handle that load.
BROADcasting is still the most-efficient ways to distribute (versus single-casting). Using broadcasting, NBC can send-out just 200 copies of Heroes via 200 stations distributed over the continent, and reaching 99% of the U.S. population. That's far more efficient than sending out 30,000,000 copies of the show via internet.
One final thought:
Whitespace Devices won't just block over-the-air television. They will also block your Cable television, or at least severely degrade the image, as the WSD signals leak into the exposed jacks hanging off your walls or set-top boxes.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
>>>protection of large-scale commons.
What you're really talking about is a government monopoly over oil, coal, et cetera. That is no better than a Comcast monopoly. It has exactly the same flaws, with the additional flaw that government doesn't listen to the people (it just takes the money directly from your paycheck).
It makes a lot more sense to sub-divide those things across multiple owners, and have those owners compete for your business. That provides the People with the *most direct* method of control - the power of the purse. If you don't like company A's practices, withhold your money. Stop buying the product.
Or continue buying the product, but instead choose company B, C, D, ..., X, Y, or Z. THAT is true pro-choice and true power to the people.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Democracy, the god that failed advocates anarcho-capitalism, or a hyper-randian society. The middle ages were exactly this type of society, and they were a nightmare of tyranny.
I'm sorry, but libertarians love to ignore those considerably long and painful times when the market truly was free, and corporations wielded market power with an iron fist against individual liberty and well being, and even posed a threat to governments.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others.
I have some actual new ideas rather than swapping one old oppressive regime for another old oppressive regime. I'll try to expand upon them and publish a book.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The people aren't all that wonderful. I lived in Japan for a while, now there are some nice people. When I came back I was literally terrified of some of the people over here in Australia. XD
The majority of the people are essentially redneck hicks and so don't care about the internet. You can't even use the "They're taking away your porn!" line because they're stupid enough to pay big wads of money for porn, on their mobile phones no less!
Ezekiel 23:20