That seems to sum up the common opinion pretty well. There's a fundamental difference between basic QoS to improve performance in general (giving low bandwidth, ping critical apps higher priority than higher bandwidth apps where ping is less important, such as VOIP and gaming vs web and bittorrent) and giving you a terrible connection to Vonage so you'll use your cable provider's VOIP system or giving you a lightning fast connection to Bing but 0.005k/s and a 3000 ping to Google because MS paid your ISP but Google didn't.
Your ISP isn't getting paid by Google to allow the pipe your paying for to connect to the pipe they are paying for. That's one of the big evils that Net Neutrality is specifically about preventing.
Personally, I think there should be two categories for ISPs, and it should be up to the individual ISP which one they want to be -- either a common carrier, in which case they are not legally responsible for anything going across their lines but are forbidden from pulling this kind of shit, or a private carrier, in which case they can pull all the BS they want on the lines, but are also ultimately legally responsible for all content on their network. If you pull filtering tricks or the kind of thing in this story, then since you are filtering the content in some form, your customers and those you peer to can assume said content is legal, as you are yb your own inspection process certifying it as such.
Now that every ISP takes the "common carrier -- I don't want sued out of existence because something illegal went across my lines" option, welcome to 'net neutrality. =p
Umm, even in the case that offline applications become obsolete altogether, why would we have to swallow their shenanigans without being able to do anything about it?
It's not like they can lock down the internet or anything, you can always host your own.
Go a step further then -- isolate communications from cockpit to cabin as one way only. If that means giving the pilot his own personal flight attendant/supplies, so be it.
If the attacker cannot communicate with the pilot, then there's no threat he can make to coerce the pilot. That leaves blowing up the plane and the pieces landing where they may as the most likely form of attack, since you can't really target it without some kind of control over the device.
Would 9/11 have had the same kind of impact if it had been "planes explode in the air, pieces landed wherever they happened to, WTC unharmed, vastly smaller number dead"? Hell, if it were just passengers+crew+a handful of unfortunates on the ground, then OK bombing would still be the worst terrorist act brought against us. Where are the checkpoints at every on ramp and exit requiring full searches of all drivers, passengers, and loads after that one?
There's also the potential attack of impersonating the pilot or potentially his new personal flight attendant, but that's two personnel you have to be absolutely sure are clean no matter what other security measures you may have. You simply can't win if the attacker is the pilot.
So basically the issue is that it's impossible for an undercover (or at least plainclothes) LEO to correctly be identified as such to the airline, right?
If the airline has such trouble identifying personnel, why don't your attackers simply impersonate flight attendants or even the pilot?
Oh, now, technically that one claim is true -- you can pack more killing power into a smaller total package than at points in the past. I mean, come on, if you compare to pre-gunpowder it's not even close, let alone once we developed some meaningful explosives.
You make it sound like putting very good locks on the cockpit doors would have prevented the 9/11 attacks, but not funneled as much money to friends of politicians nor been as visible in a "see, we're making it better" sort of way. Maybe include an armed undercover LEO on every plane as an additional security measure -- undercover so that an attacker knows someone on the plane is armed, but has no way of knowing whom.
Seriously, there are two things that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur, and much like the "be handed the ball and stroll through the defensive line" football play (seriously, just search youtube for football play, it's probably still the first result) it will never work again. Those two things are:
1. Access to the cockpit by the attackers. A securely locked cockpit resolves this issue entirely. Even better if it can only be locked or unlocked from the inside.
2. Apathy by the passengers -- before this, being hijacked basically meant an unfortunate detour for you. Now that it's clear it can mean potential death, the passengers who wildly outnumber the terrorists can almost certainly stop him. Even if he's armed -- after all, resist and maybe die is a better bet than don't and certainly die.
I took a philosophy course as an elective. My professor had a simple solution to this problem -- instead of grading on "long" essays, he graded on "short" essays, to be produced in class as tests.
He'd list ~7 questions regarding the recently covered material as topics, you picked one and started writing. He was "generous" enough to let you stay over by a good 15 minutes if it was needed. 2 page minimum, 3-5 was typically expected. He was pretty brutal in grading them too.
MSE will never be part of standard windows installations, because they'd get sued for antitrust in the same exact way as happened with IE. I do wish the red shield icon from the "Security Center" would at least have a "Click here if you would like to install MSE" on it, if only to get more people protected with something rather than Antivirus XP'ed.
I'm not talking about irremovably bundling it into the OS, I just mean something as simple as recommending it or even displaying it in a list of other AVs noting price points when the user clicks on the "You have no antivirus, click here to get one installed, numbnuts!" red shield.
You know, something like:
1. Norton: $x/year 2. McAfee: $x/year 3. AVG: $x/year 4. AVG Free: Free! 5. Microsoft Security Essentials (Recommended): Free! 6. I have my own choice of antivirus that I will install. 7. I have my own antivirus already installed that you do not recognize, and I will monitor it myself.
The funny part being that Security Essentials is actually pretty decent for a freely (as in gratis) distributed app. I actually wish MS put just a tiny bit of effort to push it in windows, so that those who are cheap would install it before they fall prey to the Antivirus XP BS.
What, trying to compare to the Communists rather than look closer to home at things like the old coal towns? We own the housing and we pay you in company scrip that can only be spent in the company store, that way you have no reasonable way out. You'll work for us because we're the only employer in town, and you can't move away because you can't afford it because we won't pay you with actual money.
It's also wrong regardless of political position. If I were to do exactly the same thing to you, you'd be lucky to get the police to give it a second thought, even if you could pinpoint me for them. Politician? Oh, that's different, they deserve the actual protections named under the law.
...but that's the point -- listening to her makes the part of your brain that thinks clearly turn itself off in disgust, such that slamming head in filing cabinet seems like a good way to make the pain stop. =p
...and if Palin had not been using that particular account to violate the law herself, then nothing in it would have had national political ramifications beyond possibly some embarrassment on her part if she'd had embarrassing personal photos/messages in there.
Even if she were an actual vice president, there's no national security element unless she was breaking the law in precisely the manner she was as governor, using a private email account to prevent things from being on the record and potentially accessible to FOIA requests.
So you are saying that you feel that it's a *good* thing if politicians are given greater protection under the law and larger penalties are wielded against those that commit crimes against them, and not simply the innate failure of a system run by people that they would put themselves above others?
No, if he accessed my account or your account and proved we were engaging in significant unlawful behavior, he'd probably be praised. If he did that to Obama, there'd be Tea Party protests demanding he be pardoned outright for proving that Obama is corrupt and trying to avoid legally mandated oversight.
Windows Live and Steam don't explicitly cooperate, why does this surprise anyone? Steam =/= Windows Live, and MS wants developers to integrate Windows Live specifically in order to eventually push Windows Live Marketplace hard.
Most things that have CD keys you can get at the key by bringing up the Steam overlay (default Shift-Tab). If it displays the key when you try to start the game, it will display it on the overlay.
Neither the Windows Live thing nor the CD Keys are not Steam issues though -- they're BS that you have to deal with regardless of where you obtained the game.
Design an online digital distribution system that is in no way "evil" but will still get AAA publishers willing to distribute on it. Steam is so popular because it strikes a good balance between the two -- it's more or less minimally evil enough to actually attract publishers to sell on it.
I think this ties into the whole lack of lock-in thing -- they're upright about it because if they become a bunch of dicks, then Impulse and the like (even something like Greenhouse) could potentially move in and steal their business. Since Steam has no way to hold onto you outside of your previous purchases, they don't want to do anything that might make you look at Impulse or the like (I only have one game on Impulse, it's Demigod).
Of course, the technology is only sufficiently advanced once it can be used to produce complete functional copies of itself from raw materials (some assembly required, of course, though if it can manage that too we'd be golden).
So, basically you get days that are no different than vacation, except that you don't have to announce ahead of time that you are using them?
I'm certain that if you had a medical condition that can be validated (as in written explanation from a doctor as to the nature of the condition) that has "attacks" like that, you'd get an exception to the rule.
You get a cold? Burn a vacation day or take an unpaid day.
You get injured? You'll burn two vacation/unpaid then sick leave until you are well enough to come back on light duty until a doctor validates that you can return to normal duties.
My employer had a simple solution to the misuse of sick leave -- sick leave is only intended for extended illness, so the first X days you are out "sick" come from vacation, after that from a relatively generous amount of paid sick leave (something like a month) then unpaid excused absence (as in they aren't paying you, but they aren't holding it against you) but only if you can provide signed documentation from a doctor certifying your condition (otherwise it's vacation then unexcused absence, which they are relatively unkind about). They then contact the doctor to verify.
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That seems to sum up the common opinion pretty well. There's a fundamental difference between basic QoS to improve performance in general (giving low bandwidth, ping critical apps higher priority than higher bandwidth apps where ping is less important, such as VOIP and gaming vs web and bittorrent) and giving you a terrible connection to Vonage so you'll use your cable provider's VOIP system or giving you a lightning fast connection to Bing but 0.005k/s and a 3000 ping to Google because MS paid your ISP but Google didn't.
Your ISP isn't getting paid by Google to allow the pipe your paying for to connect to the pipe they are paying for. That's one of the big evils that Net Neutrality is specifically about preventing.
Personally, I think there should be two categories for ISPs, and it should be up to the individual ISP which one they want to be -- either a common carrier, in which case they are not legally responsible for anything going across their lines but are forbidden from pulling this kind of shit, or a private carrier, in which case they can pull all the BS they want on the lines, but are also ultimately legally responsible for all content on their network. If you pull filtering tricks or the kind of thing in this story, then since you are filtering the content in some form, your customers and those you peer to can assume said content is legal, as you are yb your own inspection process certifying it as such.
Now that every ISP takes the "common carrier -- I don't want sued out of existence because something illegal went across my lines" option, welcome to 'net neutrality. =p
Umm, even in the case that offline applications become obsolete altogether, why would we have to swallow their shenanigans without being able to do anything about it?
It's not like they can lock down the internet or anything, you can always host your own.
Go a step further then -- isolate communications from cockpit to cabin as one way only. If that means giving the pilot his own personal flight attendant/supplies, so be it.
If the attacker cannot communicate with the pilot, then there's no threat he can make to coerce the pilot. That leaves blowing up the plane and the pieces landing where they may as the most likely form of attack, since you can't really target it without some kind of control over the device.
Would 9/11 have had the same kind of impact if it had been "planes explode in the air, pieces landed wherever they happened to, WTC unharmed, vastly smaller number dead"? Hell, if it were just passengers+crew+a handful of unfortunates on the ground, then OK bombing would still be the worst terrorist act brought against us. Where are the checkpoints at every on ramp and exit requiring full searches of all drivers, passengers, and loads after that one?
There's also the potential attack of impersonating the pilot or potentially his new personal flight attendant, but that's two personnel you have to be absolutely sure are clean no matter what other security measures you may have. You simply can't win if the attacker is the pilot.
So basically the issue is that it's impossible for an undercover (or at least plainclothes) LEO to correctly be identified as such to the airline, right?
If the airline has such trouble identifying personnel, why don't your attackers simply impersonate flight attendants or even the pilot?
Wait, were you talking about medics, lawyers, or politicians there?
Oh, now, technically that one claim is true -- you can pack more killing power into a smaller total package than at points in the past. I mean, come on, if you compare to pre-gunpowder it's not even close, let alone once we developed some meaningful explosives.
You make it sound like putting very good locks on the cockpit doors would have prevented the 9/11 attacks, but not funneled as much money to friends of politicians nor been as visible in a "see, we're making it better" sort of way. Maybe include an armed undercover LEO on every plane as an additional security measure -- undercover so that an attacker knows someone on the plane is armed, but has no way of knowing whom.
Seriously, there are two things that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur, and much like the "be handed the ball and stroll through the defensive line" football play (seriously, just search youtube for football play, it's probably still the first result) it will never work again. Those two things are:
1. Access to the cockpit by the attackers. A securely locked cockpit resolves this issue entirely. Even better if it can only be locked or unlocked from the inside.
2. Apathy by the passengers -- before this, being hijacked basically meant an unfortunate detour for you. Now that it's clear it can mean potential death, the passengers who wildly outnumber the terrorists can almost certainly stop him. Even if he's armed -- after all, resist and maybe die is a better bet than don't and certainly die.
I took a philosophy course as an elective. My professor had a simple solution to this problem -- instead of grading on "long" essays, he graded on "short" essays, to be produced in class as tests.
He'd list ~7 questions regarding the recently covered material as topics, you picked one and started writing. He was "generous" enough to let you stay over by a good 15 minutes if it was needed. 2 page minimum, 3-5 was typically expected. He was pretty brutal in grading them too.
MSE will never be part of standard windows installations, because they'd get sued for antitrust in the same exact way as happened with IE. I do wish the red shield icon from the "Security Center" would at least have a "Click here if you would like to install MSE" on it, if only to get more people protected with something rather than Antivirus XP'ed.
I'm not talking about irremovably bundling it into the OS, I just mean something as simple as recommending it or even displaying it in a list of other AVs noting price points when the user clicks on the "You have no antivirus, click here to get one installed, numbnuts!" red shield.
You know, something like:
1. Norton: $x/year
2. McAfee: $x/year
3. AVG: $x/year
4. AVG Free: Free!
5. Microsoft Security Essentials (Recommended): Free!
6. I have my own choice of antivirus that I will install.
7. I have my own antivirus already installed that you do not recognize, and I will monitor it myself.
Add whoever else you like to that list.
The funny part being that Security Essentials is actually pretty decent for a freely (as in gratis) distributed app. I actually wish MS put just a tiny bit of effort to push it in windows, so that those who are cheap would install it before they fall prey to the Antivirus XP BS.
What, trying to compare to the Communists rather than look closer to home at things like the old coal towns? We own the housing and we pay you in company scrip that can only be spent in the company store, that way you have no reasonable way out. You'll work for us because we're the only employer in town, and you can't move away because you can't afford it because we won't pay you with actual money.
It's also wrong regardless of political position. If I were to do exactly the same thing to you, you'd be lucky to get the police to give it a second thought, even if you could pinpoint me for them. Politician? Oh, that's different, they deserve the actual protections named under the law.
...but that's the point -- listening to her makes the part of your brain that thinks clearly turn itself off in disgust, such that slamming head in filing cabinet seems like a good way to make the pain stop. =p
...and if Palin had not been using that particular account to violate the law herself, then nothing in it would have had national political ramifications beyond possibly some embarrassment on her part if she'd had embarrassing personal photos/messages in there.
Even if she were an actual vice president, there's no national security element unless she was breaking the law in precisely the manner she was as governor, using a private email account to prevent things from being on the record and potentially accessible to FOIA requests.
So you are saying that you feel that it's a *good* thing if politicians are given greater protection under the law and larger penalties are wielded against those that commit crimes against them, and not simply the innate failure of a system run by people that they would put themselves above others?
No, if he accessed my account or your account and proved we were engaging in significant unlawful behavior, he'd probably be praised. If he did that to Obama, there'd be Tea Party protests demanding he be pardoned outright for proving that Obama is corrupt and trying to avoid legally mandated oversight.
Windows Live and Steam don't explicitly cooperate, why does this surprise anyone? Steam =/= Windows Live, and MS wants developers to integrate Windows Live specifically in order to eventually push Windows Live Marketplace hard.
Most things that have CD keys you can get at the key by bringing up the Steam overlay (default Shift-Tab). If it displays the key when you try to start the game, it will display it on the overlay.
Neither the Windows Live thing nor the CD Keys are not Steam issues though -- they're BS that you have to deal with regardless of where you obtained the game.
Design an online digital distribution system that is in no way "evil" but will still get AAA publishers willing to distribute on it. Steam is so popular because it strikes a good balance between the two -- it's more or less minimally evil enough to actually attract publishers to sell on it.
I think this ties into the whole lack of lock-in thing -- they're upright about it because if they become a bunch of dicks, then Impulse and the like (even something like Greenhouse) could potentially move in and steal their business. Since Steam has no way to hold onto you outside of your previous purchases, they don't want to do anything that might make you look at Impulse or the like (I only have one game on Impulse, it's Demigod).
Of course, the technology is only sufficiently advanced once it can be used to produce complete functional copies of itself from raw materials (some assembly required, of course, though if it can manage that too we'd be golden).
So, basically you get days that are no different than vacation, except that you don't have to announce ahead of time that you are using them?
I'm certain that if you had a medical condition that can be validated (as in written explanation from a doctor as to the nature of the condition) that has "attacks" like that, you'd get an exception to the rule.
You get a cold? Burn a vacation day or take an unpaid day.
You get injured? You'll burn two vacation/unpaid then sick leave until you are well enough to come back on light duty until a doctor validates that you can return to normal duties.
My employer had a simple solution to the misuse of sick leave -- sick leave is only intended for extended illness, so the first X days you are out "sick" come from vacation, after that from a relatively generous amount of paid sick leave (something like a month) then unpaid excused absence (as in they aren't paying you, but they aren't holding it against you) but only if you can provide signed documentation from a doctor certifying your condition (otherwise it's vacation then unexcused absence, which they are relatively unkind about). They then contact the doctor to verify.