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Congress's Techno-Ignorance No Longer Funny
pigrabbitbear writes "Since its introduction, the Stop Online Piracy Act (and its Senate twin PROTECT-IP) has been staunchly condemned by countless engineers, technologists and lawyers intimately familiar with the inner functioning of the internet. Completely beside the fact that these bills, as they currently stand, would stifle free speech and potentially cripple legitimate businesses by giving corporations extrajudicial censorial powers, there's an even more insidious threat: the method of DNS filtering proposed to block supposed infringing sites opens up enormous security holes that threaten the stability of the internet itself. The problem: key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works, and worse yet, it's not clear whether they even want to."
Ignorance is bliss. And when shit hits the fan, they can claim plausible deniability.
Seriously.
if one is receiving insane amounts of money and political clout to deliberately ignore severe problems in a proposed bill, is it still ignorance?
Slashdot on net neutrality: "Why, of course! I'd love for the government to regulate internet traffic. What could possibly go wrong?"
Slashdot on SOPA: "Regulate internet traffic?! Ignorant scum! Viva la revolución!"
Congress just rubber-stamps bills that are written up by lobbyists. That has been fairly well proven.
My quote explains the why quite well in my opinion.
In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.
All of them!
about MONEY !
and Putin is correct: McCain IS nuts !
Yours In Ashgabat,
K. Trout, PatRIOT
The opposite of Progress is Congress.
I don't think they are as willfully stupid as people make them out to be, but tend to let lobbyists and industry representatives do a lot of their thinking for them - in all areas, we're just focused on SOPA and Protect-IP because they are closer to our hearts.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Get Al Gore to explain it to them. after all he invented it.
he could make a move and call it. SOPA, An inconvenient untruth
all of Congress is made up of lawyers. Where are the engineers and scientists? There are none.
Cheers TV show illuminati = Hermetical Whilst Vinous
coincidence? I think not!
Cheers TV Show = Another Illuminati Program?
The show opens with a lady holding a glass of what appears to be red wine but is it instead, blood? Other people are holding glasses with red liquid too, the strange man holding up the newspaper which boldly reads, "WE WON!" (or "WE WIN" I don't remember the exact statement) I always wondered about the purpose of that guy holding up the paper, then it became clear.. AND.. notice the only individual, in green, hidden from the waist up, what message does this convey?
- First lady in title screen: The Scarlet Woman - In her right she holds aloft the cup
- Other people holding glasses with red liquid: blood and their elevated social status, secret club like ending to the opening of each show with the two gentlemen and their glasses raised
- The lady wearing green but it never shows her from the waist up? Probably a reference to not being human, green/reptile/obscurity/hidden/ssh!
- The man holding up the paper with the winning message could be translated as, "The illuminati has won/wins."
I'm confident more meaning can be extracted from the opening.
Furthermore, the show centers around a guy who everyone looks up to whose life revolves around getting the community drunk and banging as many women as he can. The intellectual psychologist is dominated by Lilith, and we know the spiritual meaning behind that name.
I'm confident more meaning can be extracted from each character and the episodes.
Let's examine the theme song:
"Making your way in the world today takes everything youâ(TM)ve got."
It's sure rough out there.
"Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot."
You need a change in program/direction!
"Wouldnâ(TM)t you like to get away?"
We have your golden ticket, humans!
"Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,"
Pride and the fall
"and theyâ(TM)re always glad you came."
False acceptance by illuminati towards newcomers
"You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same"
The club shares the same woes, apart from those outside
the "big club"
"You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name."
More pride, more entitlement, apart from the herd
"You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,"
They're all in the illuminati or bound somehow to them.
"You wanna go where everybody knows
your name."
Drilled into your head a final time to settle in your
mind. The song seems like a lullaby and bearing
brainwashing hypnosis targeted to the subconscious.
Cheers TV show illuminati (anagram) = Hermetical Whilst Vinous
It's no secret what Hermetical means, google it, and Whilst Vinous?
It couldn't be ANY clearer.
_________
It is the classic Masonic rhetoric in here, as their cult has completely brainwashed them.
Cheers
Seen on the back wall of the bar as Shelley Long walks past is a sign: "This is a square house. Report any un-fairness to the proprietor." demonstrating a non-masonic use of the concept of squareness representing fairness. Replacing a poster for a 27 February 1929 Jack Dempsey exhibition fight, used for the pilot episode, this sign was a permanent addition to the set for season one.
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/fiction/cheers.html
So masons interprets this as a demonstrating of a non-masonic use of the concept of squareness representing fairness- LOL
...not a giant truck you can just dump stuff on!
The Federation of American Scientists:
The EYE discovered four times within one .gif at:
on pages:
https://www.fas.org/eprint.htm
https://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/index.html
They could've used any image in the world but the EYE was chosen, hmmmm why?
As you browse through the site, picking random .htm pages in whichever subject area you choose, many, if not all of the titles include the eye, this time it's just one, not four, example:
at:
https://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/billman.htm
Wedjat, eye of Horus:
Strange image:
at:
https://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/
Select one of the topics from the link above
Who are they?
"About FAS
The Federation of American Scientists, an independent, nonpartisan think tank and registered 501(c)(3) non-profit membership organization, is dedicated to providing rigorous, objective, evidence-based analysis and practical policy recommendations on national and international security issues connected to applied science and technology. Moreover, FAS is committed to educating policymakers, the public, the news media, and the next generation of scientists, engineers, and global leaders about the urgent need for creating a more secure and better world." - https://fas.org/about/index.html
The eye is found over and over and over and over on many pages on their site. This isn't any old blog site, mind you.
Time to find new ways to promote freedom of information and leave the internet become obsolete.
SOPA and other intrusive legislation like it is merely the next logical step after you ask the government to take control of the internet with things like Network Neutrality efforts.
You all encouraged the government to intervene in the internet. Now they continue to do so and you are mad?
I would laugh expect I have to live on the same screwed-up internet you are helping to create.
I just hope you have all learned a lesson here. But sadly I am pretty sure the response to my post will indicate that is not the case and some people still really believe that you can actually separate mythical good government intervention from bad government intervention.
Sigh.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Congress represents the lowest common denominator of intelligence and has too much power.
It's just to cheap for coorporate america to hedge it's bets when they only have to bribe.... errh I mean make campaign contributions, to 2 parties. Try to elect some representatives from the pirate party, like sweden has.
Run with the lemmings, and you'll get your feet wet.
Require that anyone who can even rule on such matters actually have a basic understanding of said matters.
If people can't understand the very basic concepts of how the internet works, they don't deserve to even use it in my opinion, never mind create rules and regulations for it.
The problem: key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works, and worse yet, it's not clear whether they even want to."
And does anyone find this to be surprising? I'm not sure more than a handful of congressmen know how to do anything but accept donations and campaign for re-election
You have *way* too much time on your hands.
slowed down my recent ammunition purchases.
The technological ignorance of the Congressvarmints is matched by their economic ignorance.
What? Slashdot users agree on something?!
* betterunixthanunix has entered his bunker
Palm trees and 8
Vote with lead, if you see an elected official, shoot them.
We had the samw try here. The result was a new party in the parliamental race.
If you don't break the grip of the two party system, you will have a ruling aristocracy in less than a generation.
To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.
"Combating the theft of U.S. property"...honestly? The words "theft" and "property" are HUGE red flags that these people have no clue what they are talking about.
What else do you expect?
They aren't the computer generation.
What matters to most of them is just higest bidder. With enough money and few enough parties they can win another period there anyway.
And maybe more worrysome than congress, there is not enough people with a clue on the topic to have a chance to make hear their voices in big enough numbers.
They may not understand the internet but I think they understand money.
As a non American I hope this bill backfires and makes the younger and smarter more concerned and aware of politics. Yesterday tons of 4channers had streams of the amendment hearings and saw how ignorant politicians really are. Pissing off the internet is never a good idea.
Obama isn't going to pass it and if he did I see it causing major sites to simply change from American ownership to somewhere else. Of course really big sites like google would just be heavily censored like youtube.
Wouldn't be a bad time to go ahead and create some foreign sites now though.
I wouldn't mind going back to IRC personally.
then that is all that matters to them. Let the next Government worry about the fallout, because they'll be nekkid in Tahiti.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Don't use lead, it's bad for the environment. Use this instead.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
That was odd. Slashdot ate the parameter from my anchor URL... Search for "lead free ammunition".
Damn Google, spoiling my joke.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The ignorance of our elected officials was never funny. It was sad and grossly pathetic, and still remains so.
Given the democractic system, it is a direct reflection on who we are as a people. As much as people piss and moan about the retards we end up electing, vanishingly few of said people either vote for non-retards, or run against the retards. As such, we get the government we deserve; the government that WE THE PEOPLE voted for.
Just like the corporatocracy/plutocracy/Fascist state that we're fast becoming (which is an obvious symptomatic effect of the problem), people don't get how they are empowering the very evil they rail against. Corporations would have NO power if people stopped feeding them.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
Like post to Facebook ;-) should not be crafting any laws that affect the internet in anyway. Period.
I mean, I would much rather having accomplished scientists, engineers, and other professions representing me than someone who majored in law in college with the sole intention of being a politician. There is a breakdown in the system, and it was completely intended - when individual senators represent and are elected by up to 60 million people (Cali) they have no connection to their constituents at all.
I mean, the process to fix it is an arduous process. We need to take money out of politics, take it out of campaigning, and we can easily use technology to develop a mutually agreed upon open platform on the internet to market representatives. Like, say, each county could host a site called elections.XXXX.gov and it would allow people to apply and run for the office. Probably have a tiny $10 running fee to keep people from flooding the sites, but besides that make it open to all constituents and all it takes is the ability to type in ones positions and appear at public debate. And then outlaw the spending of money on political advertising, because once we have an easy to access platform for knowing all the candidates where they can respectively give their standings on different political topics, we can move away from the grossly unintended 2 party system and more towards electing people and not parties that don't work in the publics interest.
Problem is, the entrenched powers have absolutely no desire to move towards a system where anyone but the in crowd of each party could ever get nominated and handed to the public. They want 2 partys because they are easier to control and mutually benefit from the status quo.
/. view of the issue is shortsighted, believing that the government system is actually there for any purpose different from enriching the politicians and everybody with access to the politicians.
This is not an aberration, is what I am saying, this is the DESIGN, this is the purpose of what government does. Think about a little issue of taxes - does any sane person understand the entire tax structure that is now on the books in USA? Is it even humanly possible for a single person to understand it at all in one life time?
The issue is not this small (and this is a small issue compared say to your right to life and liberty), the issue is that the system is now completely subverted, the government operates outside of the law boundaries imposed upon it by the Constitution and the people bought into the idea that this is acceptable and not challenging the status-quo.
You can't handle the truth.
IIRC when foreign agents give money to us politicnas, there is a big shit storm
Imagine if they applied their level of tech knowledge to other areas. Like the economy:
"Congressman, how do you counter the charge that the 150% tax rate on the middle class and 0% tax rate on anyone making more than a million dollars in the Save Our Poor Affluent bill will result in millions going bankrupt?"
"Well, I've been assured by the good folks in the Rich Individuals Association of America that this tax rate change will result in people buying more summer homes, yachts, and expensive cars. So obviously, it will highly boost the economy!"
"But won't it...."
"Look, I just pass the laws written for me by powerful lobbying organizations. I'm not an economics nerd!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
....is why we need a political system overhaul. The current system we have now is starting to show it's age in keeping up with the Information Age. As a start, we should loosen up the age restrictions on some of these political seats. Another one would be requiring some type of education in a professional field in order to get a higher seat. What about a rating system for our Representatives or Senators based on official public voting. Fall below a certain percentage, and see ya! Heck I'd vote alot more if I knew I could affect a Congressman's position to stay or go... I mean I'm not asking for a over night extreme makeover, but small changes like this could go a long way to implementing better laws to keep up with this age.
The problem: key members of [strike]the House Judiciary Committee[/strike] Congress still don't understand [strike]how the internet works,[/strike] anything at all, with the possible exception of money, and worse yet, it's not clear whether they even want to.
There. Fixed that for ya.
NET Neutrality is about preventing ISPs from controlling your access to content.
And how does it do that - the government dictates what the ISP's can do with network traffic, how companies can interact with the internet.
Well now SOPA comes along and - dictates what must be done with some network traffic, how companies can interact with the internet (like requiring blocking of web sites the government finds to be bothersome).
Fundamentally it's all the same thing. You are just willfully blind in thinking there is a difference. You have sadly fulfilled my prophecy that some are so blind they will not see. Enjoy the internet that YOU are creating.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Isn't it? You voted for this. I mean it's not likely anyone would buy politician's favours or anything isn't it?
I know they know what "we'll vote you out of office" means.
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
I don't think they are as willfully stupid as people make them out to be
That's a bunch of wishful thinking, because some of them truly are.
The internet is seen as a means for the 99% to organize and obtain information from outside sources.
This is nothing more or less than cyber pepper spray
No, seriously, I ask this in earnest.
It's not a tech problem. It's a matter of keeping channels free (in the Freedom sense).
Introduce control and you get 1984. Introduce control by corporations and you might as well declare the US a plutocracy, without any trace of the democracy Jefferson and the other guys dreamed.
This is the moment in Animal Farm where the pigs close deals with humans. What can be clearer than that? Even a 10-year would understand with a 10-minute explanation.
has some infringing material on it, please take it down for me pursuant to SOPA. Thank you.
"Let's get ignorance off the streets of America and back into Congress where it belongs!"
Why can't these Congress folks just contact a University in their constituency for advice in such matters? Professors would love to get the opportunity to advise Congress for free. Great PR for the school and their department.
The Congress folks can brag about the local "technical expertise" and that the constituency will benefit with economic growth, more jobs, and free coke and hookers for all . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It seems to work just fine in other countries where the government isn't so corrupted by corporate interests.
Name an example. Other countries are rife with internet censorship (like the banning of nazi material in Germany).
What exactly is your proposed solution to the problem of corporations controlling what you can and can't do on the internet? Trusting in the benevolent, all-seeing Invisible Hand?
WHERE IS THE PROBLEM YOU ARE TRYING TO SOLVE???????
Seriosuly! What "problem" have we in the US that Net Neutrality (and now SOPA) solves? There is none! It's a concept built to fight a hypothetical bogeyman that has never arisen! The closest thing we had was Comcast throttling some traffic but the way they did it would not even be covered by Network Neutrality - and the fact is they stopped when consumers complained, no government required!!
You are seeking "protection" from things people are trying to scare you into believing are problems is just like people passing bad laws "for the children". Screw that, what about the adults, don't we deserve some freedom of choice? Sure there might be a few rough patches but at least let us choose how to run our own lives.
Guess not! Crawl into your cocoon and enjoy the warmth as it slowly constricts around you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...stopped them up to now.
I don't think their techno-ignorance is any new phenomenon or particularly egregious. Pretty much why organizing your social progress around congress ends up sucking hard.
Lets take a moment to remember Jibekn, and the humor he brought to slashdot. We can only hope that the rural ass prison he was incarcerated in will get that dial up line soon so he can join us again.
Congress can't even comprehend the Constitution. How can we expect them to comprehend technology.
Term Limits..
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
Thank you for being a friend.
Travel down the road and back again.
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.
And if you threw a party,
invited everyone you knew.
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
and the card attached would say,
thank you for being a friend.
They just don't care. The wheels have been greased, the appropriate promises and payoffs have been made in the backrooms of Washington D.C., and this bill is slated to pass no matter what a bunch of geeks have to say about it.
Look, we all know this bill will be passed because the Congressmen are legally bribed by the "media/content industry" to pass it. We write strongly worded letters to our representatives, who send back form letters and then do as their actual masters bid them to do. The MPAA et al just have more money than we do.
But they got that money from us.
We go to their movies. We buy their DVD and Blu-rays. We pay for their cable services, their rentals via mail, via kiosk, via streaming. We pay to download from iTunes and Amazon. We gave them our money, and they use it against us.
Stop.
Stop giving them money! Don't buy their shit. Don't rent their shit. Don't even let them charge advertisers to run commercials during the shit they give you for free. Turn it off. Don't even pirate it! Just walk away from it all.
They have nothing we have not given them. Stop giving it to them.
jurys / judges in courts cases are the same way with tech cases and part of fixing Congress needs to be done at the courts level as well. Now what if there where 3rd party techs (as in not tied to 1 side or a other) to help out in cases?
OK, folks, let's concede that the government has ceased to be anything but an extension of the kleptocracy. Let's drop the left-vs-right, Republican-vs.-Democrat BS that is a dangerous distraction. Let's drop all the BS memes that have been focus-group tested by the 1% to take everyone's minds off what's really going on. OK? Let's stop pretending that Congress or any part of the government will listen to any level or form of input or bitching and change its ways. Let's just drop that stuff because it's unproductive.
Instead, let's approach this problem like the scientists, engineers, geeks, nerds, and can-do people we are and see it as a technical challenge we can solve. Society is broken, the economy is broken, government is broken. How do we fix it?
If SOPA is threatening the traditional internet, how do we route around the damage? Can we dramatically grow the number of nodes and routing capabilities? Can we design an open source ad-hoc mesh network that makes any attempt to shut it down an impossible project of confiscating every router, cellphone, car, and thing in the world that can communicate with each other?
Can we design crowd-sourcing tools that allow the 99% to track and neutralize the 1% far more effectively than they could ever do to us? Can we make it possible to in every way tell them that their BS is no longer welcome on Planet Earth?
Can we re-wire technical systems to promote and support the Steve Jobs & Woz's of the world to create a brighter future for us all?
That's really the conversation we ought to be having on /. every day, not endless hand-wringing about the supposed government and big companies who JUST WON'T LISTEN TO US.
Let's work the problem, folks.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Just as the gun nuts have the NRA, we have the EFF. It must be recognized that this fight will never end, and vigilance must be eternal. Join freedom-loving organizations, call your friends and politicians, and vote.
"I'll give you my domain when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!"
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Do you really expect the members of Congress, elected from the general public, to be experts in all of those areas?
No but you do expect elected politicians to be good at talking to people, specifically people who ARE experts in an area. Plus you also expect them to have enough brains to be able to weigh what they are being told against the interests of the person talking. The problem is that very few politicians, at least in the UK, come from any sort of science background. Hence they typically lack the basic tools with which to understand technical issues, even if they are properly briefed.
Worse I bet if you looked at politicians' staff you would find a similar utter lack of science backgrounds so they don't any one to give them that briefing since their staff are probably as clueless about it as they are. So while I would agree that they do not need to know specifically how X works they DO have a responsibility to make sure that they have someone they can trust who can explain technical stuff to them BEFORE they vote to pass laws on it and this part of their duty is something they are clearly failing on.
It's not just technolgy that politicians are ignorant of, it's pretty much everything outside their political sphere. This is why central planning always collapses eventually; every stupid new law passed by people who don't understand what they're doing without considering the consequences adds more cost and complexity to society until it can no longer sustain itself.
Without government regulation, Comcast would have been able to block all Netflix access.
No, because customers would have left in droves. That is the reason they never even considered such a thing.
I don't have to believe companies care about customers, just that they care about having them -something you apparently believe is unpossible.
Here's a hint - Network Neutrality has not yet passed in the U.S. and yet I am still watching Netflix over Comcast internet.
Again you are raising hypothetical bogeymen that will NEVER HAPPEN when you consider market pressures alone.
Can't we at least wait to see any any ISP does something like that before trying to write regulations that encourage the arrival of other things like SOPA? How do you know any given version of Network Neutrality would even stop Comcast from blocking Netflix in some way we cannot imaging and a bill written by people who, as this story summary notes "do not understand technology" cannot possibly imagine?
It's really hilarious to me how against things like the Patriot Act Slashdot users are in general, how quick they are to throw out the Franklin quote about liberty and security - all the while seeking to shed liberty like water off a duck when it's framed as protecting "the internets" from some mythical bogeyman that might take away a toy.
Oh, I can't help but notice you utterly failed to point out what country has Network Neutrality in place that does not also censor the internet in other ways.
Are you just stupid? Or some kind of sock puppet meant to pacify technical users so you can implement the internet controls you so desperately crave?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Explain how DNSBL adversely affects SECURITY specifically someone, please (per this quote from the article here today):
"the method of DNS filtering proposed to block supposed infringing sites opens up enormous security holes that threaten the stability of the internet itself"
Because I have seen DNSBL's be used to AID SECURITY, ala:
---
A.) Norton DNS (198.153.192.50 and 198.153.194.50/198.153.192.40 and 198.153.194.40/198.153.192.60 and 198.153.194.60) -> http://nortondns.com/ & you can even see how it updates every few minutes vs. known malicious sites-servers, here -> http://safeweb.norton.com/buzz as well as get a GOOD read on how/why it works, etc.- et al, here https://dns.norton.com/dnsweb/faq.do
It filters vs. MANY threats online & IS UP TO DATE as is possible I'd imaging (see those links, you'll understand WHY I state that). It's part of WHY I use it as my PRIMARY DNS here...
---
B.) ScrubIT DNS (67.138.54.100 and 207.225.209.66 ) -> http://www.scrubit.com/ & here is a good read on how/why it works via its FAQ's as well -> http://www.scrubit.com/index.cfm?page=faq
---
C.) Open DNS (208.67.222.222 or 208.67.220.220) -> https://store.opendns.com/get/home-free
---
EACH IS FREE, & WORKS vs. threats online of MANY kinds, doubtless via a form of DNSBL they use for filtering those threats out!
(E.G.-> Phishing/Spamming, Malware hosting sites/servers, Maliciously scripted hosts-domains etc./et al & more...)
I.E./E.G.-> I use ALL 3 of them (mostly as "failovers" for one another, in case my primary can't resolve a host/domain name to an IP address, & w/ Norton DNS as primary) - I do so, in a "layered triumvirate formation" in BOTH my IP stack DNS settings in Windows (software-side), as well as in my LinkSys/CISCO router here (hardware-side)...
* Which are ALL/EACH examples of "filtering" DNS that use DNSBL's FOR THE GOOD of others online (to block out KNOWN BAD SITES/SERVERS ONLINE!).
APK
P.S.=> Now, some b.s. artist MAY mean that DNSBL's (DNS Block Lists) "harm":
1.) Illegal file sharers' "freedoms" (freedoms to STEAL is about it), but that's NOT about security being harmed @ all, whatsoever...
2.) Nor is it harming "freedom of speech" if DNSBL's are kept strictly to blocking out known bad sites/servers that serve up malicious scripted exploits, malwares, & the like (and YES, illegally shared files along with child pornography & the like etc./et al)...
... apk/b
Especially because the senate just passed a bill that lets us lock people up forever.
I doubt most bill authors on technical subjects write much of the copy themselves. The congressman sets forth the general policy and lets a specialist flesh it out. I heard something on NPR about lobbyist firms that specialize in writing bills for a fee. So when an omnibus bill opportunity comes up they spam the bill with tons of earmarks on short notice.
Look up "arms for hostages". The kidnappers were paid to hold on to the hostages until after the election.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If you think of the Senate as a live performance of "The 100 Stooges" its actually pretty humorous. And then of course you remember they're crapping legislation all over our collective lives and the crying starts. It is however cathartic. Maybe next election we can make some of them cry a little?
Bahahahahaha
Any chance the midly tech savvy Obama will veto this horrid bill?
why should the internet be any different? Hell, half of them come from states where their constituents think ID is a "scientific theory" on equal footing with evolution. And don't get me started on the whole global warming conspiracy... and fluoridation of water... and ...
"Our two-party system is a bowl of shit looking at itself in the mirror."
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I'm not a doctor, but you look like your spleen is broken. It's gotta come out. Good thing I have my Swiss Army knife. Now just lie down on that table there, bite down on something, and let's do this.
Now what does a spleen look like again, and where it is? Oh well, I'll just go digging -- I'm sure I'll find it sooner or later!
Surely you don't object to me performing surgery without a medical license or any sort of medical training? After all, like I said, I'm not a doctor ... but you're "not a nerd", and that didn't prevent you from backing SOPA, right?
Video was cute until it landed on Gore. O.K. what
he said was wrong but it was because of him we have
a publicly accessible Internet, and what we have today.
Gore more than anybody else in his position knew what
the Internet was and what it was capable of.
10 cents a minute and I'd have to pull a feed from
500 miles away (Seattle Wa, U.S.A) for my Usenet.
FidoNet was free, but not as shall we say bright as
the Internet.
Don't pound on Gore for a misstatement, learn how
the Internet worked BG (Before Gore).
Send the ignorant congress critters to jail. A few months for violation and complete disregard of The Constitution of The United States of America(tm) is the least we can do. But I honestly believe the founding fathers would have preferred death sentences instead of long jail terms. Its long overdue that people start becoming familiar and accountable for their actions. The congress critters that voted these abominations in, must be held to account. These laws violate (collectively) the most important parts of the US constitution. I'm tired of seeing "Oh, I didn't know" run roughshod all over it. JAIL! They must be brought to understand the words "DON'T TREAD ON ME".
Im not American, but yes, if my country pulled this crap, I would be killing people.
The biggest problem with Net Neutrality is that it isn't consistently defined. It means different things to different people. Indeed, in my experience, most of the people clamoring for Net Neutrality are very big about shouting "FREEDOM!!!!" like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. They love to complain that the big ISPs suck. But they're generally pretty short on specific ideas or completely-thought-through reasoning. This does not help.
Them: "Comcast sucks!"
Me: "Yes, they do. So what do you propose to do about it?"
Them: "Make them not suck!"
Me: "Okay, but how?"
Them: "Pass a law against them sucking."
Me: "Could you explain specifically what it is you want to prohibit?"
Them: "Everyone knows Comcast sucks!"
Me: *sigh*
While there are some people who can hold an intelligent conversation about this, they seem to be few and far between.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"has been staunchly condemned by countless engineers, technologists and lawyers intimately familiar with the inner functioning of the internet"
Internet is a proper noun.
It never was particularly funny and it's hardly new. More like a very sad old tradition that we can't get rid of.
Today it's the internet or stem cells. Before that, it was genetic engineering in general and a whole host of scientific and technical topics.
I can remember it going back to the 70s. My science teacher father assured me it went back prior to WW2 and that was even ignoring evolution.
It's a bipartisan problem. No party will allow another to out-ignoramus it.
And I'm sure it goes back at least to the Continental Congress.
Maybe if we leverage all our 404, 405, 403 and 500 pages to "blame SOPA for the problem with this page", then maybe John Clueless will be enticed to call his congressman.
Makin' money, makin' friends, makin' whoopee and wearin' Depends
Investing in the evil is the only way to ensure a comfortable retirement.
Guess from which industry the SOPA bill's sponsor, Lamar Smith, received his largest campaign contribution. Drum roll...the TV/Movies/Music industry. http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811
Its about any field, the more you study any particular area, the more you realize how wrong congress is about it. I started really noticing about 20 years ago that it seemed that I disagreed with the vast majority of their activity, back then, I wrote some of it off as my own personal ignorance, but the more I learn about economics, technology, etc the more I understand just how wrong they are about those areas. From that I am forced to cynically extrapolate that they are probably just as wrong about areas in which I am not knowledgeable.
My college roomate is the only person I've ever met who said "that's beside the fact" instead of "that's beside the point". Is that you, Armand?
Without the electoral college candidates will be able to completely ignore all but the three or four most populated states.
This is nothing more than a negotiating tactic. Propose something so absurd that the engineering/scientific community is united in opposition expending all their energy, then "compromise" by proposing slightly less evil.
The whole idea of benevolent and capable technocrats running society in some rational and scientific way doesn't sustain reflection.
Also, if you have any working experience in a large company, the difficulties of central knowledge and decision become painfully obvious (this limits the size of firms).
On top of that, there are serious issues with incentives in any political system, including democratic ones. See "public choice theory" for more analysis of this topic.
what good is knowing about it if you can't do anything about it? Congress has an approval rate of 9%, and they still get elected. You're completely missing the point with your suggestion, which is that these people are our ruling class. You are not free. They own you.
The correct solution is to only allow individuals to donate, and then cap the donations at a reasonable amount. If everyone has the same opportunity to express your view with money, then you have real free speech. Also, you only get to donate to an election you can vote in. No donations if you can't legally vote. Corporations can't vote, so they don't get to donate. Period. Problem solved.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The more they posture and threaten, the greater the need to move away from the present DNS structure to one which cannot be held hostage by tyrants and dictators the world over. (Unfortunately, the US now falls into this category...)
Obama WILL pass it. He doesn't give a shit about you or anyone else except himself. Him and his wife will continue to take vacations though. He's also so narcissistic that he might actually declare martial law in order to suspend elections. Trust me, you'll learn to love him. And if not, the dear leader will find ways of persuading you. Here. Have another EBT card...
The real question is: if those stupid Americans really end up breaking the internet, what can the rest of the world do? What should the rest of the world do?
I never thought I would laugh and cry at the same time for two separate reasons on any singular subject. Congratulations U.S. politicians, you are now officially so stupid in my books that it is extremely funny and extremely sad. This is something even Attack of the Killer Tomatoes failed to do.
Sure, they should only be allowed to weigh in on bills that they understand, but how often can the Corruption and Graft Bill come up for vote?
Bark less. Wag more.
Without the electoral college candidates will be able to completely ignore all but the three or four most populated states.
Even if it was true, it would be better than what you have now, when candidates ignore everything but few least populated states. In reality it would end representation of states as some kind of homogeneous groups.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
On the one side you had a few (very few) congressmen/women, namely Mr. Issa, Mr. Polis, Mr. Chaffetz, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Jackson. They spent the entire hearing pleading with the chairman and the rest of the committee to allow experts (nerds as they often said) to essentially come in and explain the internet to them, because it was obvious that 99% of the members of the committee had no idea what they were talking about. They made reasonable, logical arguments and put forth one amendment after the other trying to clarify some really vague areas of the bill, all of which were shot down by the rest of the committee usually by a vote of ~6 to 24.
On the other side you had 5 or 6 members of the committee who also admitted several times that they had zero understanding of the technical aspects of the bill, but that the bill was awesome anyway. This group was mainly the chairman of the committee Mr. Smith, Mr. Berman, Mr. Watt, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Waters. They made no arguments beyond "We have to do something. This is something. Therefor we should do this". Unlike the first group they didn't care that they were ignorant on the subject, they just wanted to get the damn thing passed. I doubt anyone here would be surprised to learn they all received large campaign contributions from the TV/Music/Film industry. Check the contributions of the first group and you'll find the same industry conspicuously absent. It's also worth noting that more than half the committee never said a word during the entire session that wasn't "No" in response to an amendment vote. This third group cared so little they couldn't even be bothered to take part in the debate.
So when you're condemning this committee for being willfully ignorant just keep in mind that 5 or 6 of them don't deserve to be thrown in with the rest like that. I'll end with a quote from a frustrated Darrell Issa, speaking to the chairman of the committee half way through the second day:
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
While this techno-ignorance is old, definitively pre-WW2, the Cold War was a time of a surprisingly sane Congress and Supreme Court in terms of pushing modern science.
It was after-all partially thanks to the Cold War that creationsim was finally forced out of the science textbooks(just to come back as "creation science", and then "intelligent design" ..
Most people online tend to ignore the effects of piracy, and are quite tolerant of it. Sure, mainstream music and movies get most of the attention, but look at PC gaming. Crytech, Id Software, Epic Games, and others have demoted PC games to second class status. The movie industry should be fortunate most of the population is not technically skilled enough to engage in piracy.
how about not tying representation to geographic districts, giving access to good politicians from other areas.
so often I hear stuff like "why can't our state have someone like X"
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Many members of Congress (especially the WASPy old men) wilfully flaunt their ignorance about all things tech as some atavistic badge of honour. Remember, we're dealing with boring old farts who still use their female aides to fetch their coffee and dry-cleaning. They're of a generation who views it as unmanly to type one's own memos, schedule one's own lunches, and so forth. So they sit on their thrones and let their underlings dirty their hands on those doodads and thingamawhatzits.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
RE: SOPA 3261 I am the IT Director for (redacted, an entity in his district). I have 28 years IT experience. Please cease and desist with the SOPA H.R.3261. To me the bill reads like a bad joke. Thank you for your consideration.
So what else is new. Congress sucks. They kowtow to their corporate masters and media industry bosses and like good lackeys, only do what they're told. In fact, they do such a good job, I find myself often wishing we could find some folks like that who could do the same for the rest of us...
"The Senate trying to govern cyberspace is analogous to King George believing he could still govern the colonies even though he had never been there." -- John Perry Barlow
Maybe this would mean only the technically inclined would be able to communicate freely using some distributed DNS+encryption etc. I'm not saying if that is a good thing or bad but we definitely are making anti-progress.
"key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works"
Easy: it's like a series of tubes.
Isn't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Research_Service_reports suppose to educate the Congress members?
For e.g. Skype
Casteism
The only thing the Congress and Senate care about is their next drink and child to molest. These laws are all written by lobbyists paid by the sponsors. The politicians are paid to support or not support the bills. We do not have a legislative body any more. They are nothing more than drunken perverts living like royalty and we are too stupid and lazy to do anything about it.
All I can say is, "well duh!" The mega-corps wrote the law and gee they benefit themselves over the proletariat. Surprise! Nothing to see here. Get rid of these bums (assuming we can) or just suck it up.
to sink SOPA, if i understand the US system right, is to hitch a rider to the bill that will make it completely unpalatable to the corporations. The political equivalent to a poison pill.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
and impose huge fines, jail time and immediate loss of position for lawmakers and staff receiving any money or gifts from lobbyists. Define gifts as anything more than you haven't eaten by the end of the day. So the plate of cookies from Martha homemaker are ok and the 500 lunch from a corporation are ok. Both allow bending of an ear but little else.
It allows people who want to make a difference into lawmaking. It quickly disperses the ones who are willing to lie cheat and steal enough money for the next voting campaign.
To help level out the playing field: Limit the amount of money a campaign fund can spend. Pay salary and benefits such that any other current sources of income will take away from your lawmaking salary. Stay at home. You cannot leave your voted state except for vacations and emergencies. This one will be particularly difficult for the people who get high on face to face inter-personal manipulations, bribes and compromises.
The real problem is that often there is one or two people who want to do the right thing but are beaten down by the current way of doing things. In order to survive they have to adapt and become just like the others or fizzle out.
Now if we could vote on the items we wish to spend our taxes on every four years we can solve a lot of problems.
There are common sense ways of changing incentives to address the deleterious effect of corporate wealth. Lawrence Lessig explains why transparency alone is insufficient, and talks about some real reforms that will actually change behavior:
1) Democracy Vouchers
2) Mandatory Anonymous Donations
These are examples of the basic reforms we need to restore decency to our democracy.
Unfortunately it will be for the follow on generation who will have a better handle on tech than the present who will have to correct a whole litany of laws written by the old business model operators to try to keep their model alive instead of using new technology to expand their positions, examples of what happens when you fail to innovate are apple Itunes versus SAM Goodies, Sam is out of business I believe. How will SOPA affect the net??? I believe there will become two camps the innovation community and the stodgy old school camps with their own independent DNS hierarchy. It will be interesting to see the outcome, the stodgy campers will undoubtedly sue and the innovators will have to try to buy out the old guard where they can and absorb them into revised/new corporate incarnations that are friendly to innovation.
I don't see a single comment on top that says what needs to be done.
Vote Ron Paul 2012, he'll veto all of this nonsense and he'll work to reduce the federal agency and shut down federal departments and reduce federal spending, which means transferring the power from the elites back to the people.
You can't handle the truth.
"...key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works..." pretty redundant, they don't know how anything in reality-world works, save their money train.
Your comment reflects an almost complete lack of understanding of incorporation. First, the idea that "corporations are bodies created to remove people from the equation" shows that you've learned just (barely) enough theory to be dangerous. The corporate veil has been put in place to protect people in business so that they are able to take financial risk without placing their personal assets at stake in the event of bankrupcy or a lawsuit. With it, the primary losers are banks that lend to bad companies that go bankrupct. Without it, we would ALL be losers because business activity would dry up overnight - taking with it nearly all the material goods, medicines, food, and shelter that you and I depend on as well as crippling the vast majority of technological innovation and scientific research.
Furthermore, if I, in my role as officer of a corporation, commit a crime against you, then the prosecutors assigned to the case will "pierce the corporate veil" like it meant nothing whatsoever IF it is the appropriate action. If personal prosecution is not appropriate, then you'll still have a cause of action against the corporate entity. Yes, corporate entities do often have more latitude than we might all prefer and NO I am not defending the big media companies foisting SOPA on us (I've written my congressmen to oppose it).
I thought Senator Stevens (R-AK) explained it a few years back: "It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."
What's not to understand?
Remember children and felons can't vote, so you have to make that 100 grand available to invest as your personal wealth (you can't decide where your pension manager puts their money).
A corporation closes when it finishes its statement of purpose. It can only work within that statement of purpose.
Corporations as exist nowadays in almost every single case DO NOT DO THIS.
Too bad those in power don't give even the slightest of two shits about what society as a whole thinks. What are people going to do, vote them out? Never happen. IF (and that's a big if) the polls aren't rigged as-is, those being elected just need to convince the proles that they're good... ie: exactly what they've been doing for the past long time. The number of stupid people by FAR outweighs the number of smart people.
All of this of course ignores the two-party system where both parties have different views on the "hot" topics (ie: the ones that don't actually matter in the grand scheme of things), but all strive towards the same end goal.
And THAT ignores the fact that if someone else were elected in, they would be bought and sold before they set foot on the white house grounds, and follow the exact same path as all those before.
This isn't about officers of the corporation, it's about owners of the corporation.
I didn't make any value judgments in my post. You inferred them from nothing. I merely pointed out the massiver error in the parent to my post.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai