Tell me about it. I'm left speechless and weighing two options: going into politics to advocate a fast-track nuclear weapons program with the intent of wiping the UK off the planet before the cancer spreads (too late, I fear) or just buying as big a gun as I can and becoming a hermit in some hole somewhere. The latter option I'm considering because the former is realistically not feasible, although otherwise tempting, and I don't trust this insanity to remain on that island.
If I believed in God, I'd be praying for some serious smiting right about now.
Yes, well, that would tie in with the obvious surveillance uses. I was wondering if there are any reasons relating purely to the functioning of the transport system - I sure can't think of any. If there are none, then it seems like a mere formality that the MI5 are asking for permission to use the databases, since the police and intelligence agencies would be the only people for the benefit of whom the system collects personal data, anyway.
Honestly, my main worry is not that criminals or other external parties will misuse the information a government gathers, but that the government itself will misuse that information. It should not be forgotten that an individuals liberty and a government's authority are always in conflict with each other, which is the whole reason modern, so-called free societies have systems to limit the powers of government. Many people seem to have lost sight of the importance of those limits, and would be willing to grant almost unlimited powers to the state, since they do not believe the state would ever misuse those powers.
It's a lovely display of trust, of course, but a woefully misguided one. If in any governmental system there is potential for abuse, then sooner or later there will be abuse. Simple probability. The more power a government has over it's citizens, the more potential for damage there is in cases of abuse. And any government will take all the power they are given, that is why they must actively be kept in check.
It was only today I read someone seriously wondering why people would complain about the police keeping a register of DNA samples and fingerprints of all citizens - their express point of view was that if it helps catch criminals, anything goes. At times like that, I tend to feel like I'm an atheist debating the existence of God with a deeply religious person. It's as if there were no common ground at all, no common logic to be found. Hopefully it isn't so.
Your idea of a criminal appears to be someone who has already committed a crime. To the government, a criminal is someone who might commit a crime, also known as a citizen.
Why does the system need to collect any personally identifiable data in the first place? Apart from the obvious surveillance uses, that is.
Incidentally, in Helsinki the public transport system uses an electronic pay card system, which is also used to create statistics on travel for use by the transport authority in designing their services. This data used to be personally identifiable, and was indeed used by the police to track the movements of the Myyrmanni bomber prior to the bombing. There was a bit of a fuss about this, however, and nowadays the system can no longer be used to track the movements of any given individual. Or that is what they say, anyway.
I think they mean it would lead to "the suspicion of otherwise innocent subjects", where "subject" is used the way a feodal lord would have used the word.
Well, when I was a naïve youngster, I had faith in people. Then, I made the mistake of reading what comments people post on the wide variety of sites on the Internet, as well as those send-an-SMS letters-to-the-editor type pages in some "newspapers" here. The inevitable conclusion is that the vast majority of people suck, and I want nothing to do with them. If things develop the way they have so far, I'll be the most caustic old man alive by the time I'm old.
I'd blame the Internet, but it's the people who really suck. The Internet just makes it so much more obvious just how much.
The first thing that popped to my mind when I heard it turned out to be an Estonian kid was the question if anyone would stop thinking of it as a Russian aggression. I guess not. It is a more exciting version of history, to be sure.
Presumably the telco figures they get more money that way. Or they don't want people to use 3g for data.
I don't know, if your subsidy theory holds true, the telcos over here seem to not have caught on. I pay 10 euro a month for a 384 kbps 3g connection, no data transfer limits apart from the speed. And the calls and SMSs aren't that expensive, either.
And besides, HOW would you go about installing any kind of Net governance in the first place? State governments have some kind of chance of at least trying to govern the Internet, since they can pressure ISPs and other players with their legislative powers. I don't see everyone on the Internet, even just the companies that run the infrastructure, suddenly agreeing to be governed by some body of experts. Then again, maybe Zittrain is proposing something completely different than a new method for governance of the Internet - it's kind of hard to tell what he actually means to say from just reading TFA.
They require that?
I've traveled in Europe with a laptop, all the related cabling and a big external HD. No-one looked twice at any of that stuff, and that HD alone could have easily hidden a significant amount of explosives, basically being just a big metal box. If I had the illusion these security checks had anything to do with security, I'd be quite baffled.
Maybe they've got sanity projects for their programmers: let them do cool stuff, too, every once in a while. Maybe they just figure it's worth making investments on neat tech without quite knowing for sure what it will end up being used for. If anyone's got enough resources to do that, it's MS.
What is WITH this founding fathers cult? Can't you trust logic and argumentation, must you invoke a bunch of ancients as some kind of semi-divine authority to back your opinions up?
Well, the main issue my source had with the requirement for the infiltrations to be subject to the proper judicial channels was that the proper judicial channels for wiretaps are basically just there to rubberstamp any requests the police make. "There are barcoded forms for that" was the way he described it...
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Perhaps, although one would hope technical infeasibility is not the most pressing reason not to implement this kind of rape of civil rights.
Tell me about it. I'm left speechless and weighing two options: going into politics to advocate a fast-track nuclear weapons program with the intent of wiping the UK off the planet before the cancer spreads (too late, I fear) or just buying as big a gun as I can and becoming a hermit in some hole somewhere. The latter option I'm considering because the former is realistically not feasible, although otherwise tempting, and I don't trust this insanity to remain on that island.
If I believed in God, I'd be praying for some serious smiting right about now.
Yes, well, that would tie in with the obvious surveillance uses. I was wondering if there are any reasons relating purely to the functioning of the transport system - I sure can't think of any. If there are none, then it seems like a mere formality that the MI5 are asking for permission to use the databases, since the police and intelligence agencies would be the only people for the benefit of whom the system collects personal data, anyway.
Honestly, my main worry is not that criminals or other external parties will misuse the information a government gathers, but that the government itself will misuse that information. It should not be forgotten that an individuals liberty and a government's authority are always in conflict with each other, which is the whole reason modern, so-called free societies have systems to limit the powers of government. Many people seem to have lost sight of the importance of those limits, and would be willing to grant almost unlimited powers to the state, since they do not believe the state would ever misuse those powers.
It's a lovely display of trust, of course, but a woefully misguided one. If in any governmental system there is potential for abuse, then sooner or later there will be abuse. Simple probability. The more power a government has over it's citizens, the more potential for damage there is in cases of abuse. And any government will take all the power they are given, that is why they must actively be kept in check.
It was only today I read someone seriously wondering why people would complain about the police keeping a register of DNA samples and fingerprints of all citizens - their express point of view was that if it helps catch criminals, anything goes. At times like that, I tend to feel like I'm an atheist debating the existence of God with a deeply religious person. It's as if there were no common ground at all, no common logic to be found. Hopefully it isn't so.
Your idea of a criminal appears to be someone who has already committed a crime. To the government, a criminal is someone who might commit a crime, also known as a citizen.
Why does the system need to collect any personally identifiable data in the first place? Apart from the obvious surveillance uses, that is.
Incidentally, in Helsinki the public transport system uses an electronic pay card system, which is also used to create statistics on travel for use by the transport authority in designing their services. This data used to be personally identifiable, and was indeed used by the police to track the movements of the Myyrmanni bomber prior to the bombing. There was a bit of a fuss about this, however, and nowadays the system can no longer be used to track the movements of any given individual. Or that is what they say, anyway.
I think they mean it would lead to "the suspicion of otherwise innocent subjects", where "subject" is used the way a feodal lord would have used the word.
The moron read the article. Big mistake, obviously.
Well, when I was a naïve youngster, I had faith in people. Then, I made the mistake of reading what comments people post on the wide variety of sites on the Internet, as well as those send-an-SMS letters-to-the-editor type pages in some "newspapers" here. The inevitable conclusion is that the vast majority of people suck, and I want nothing to do with them. If things develop the way they have so far, I'll be the most caustic old man alive by the time I'm old.
I'd blame the Internet, but it's the people who really suck. The Internet just makes it so much more obvious just how much.
There's a difference, now?
And if, once they're done, they tell the computer they're going to shut it down and it asks them not to... What then?
That's a bit of a stretch... Honestly, I'm not sure most of the people whose comments I see polluting the internet are exactly human.
The first thing that popped to my mind when I heard it turned out to be an Estonian kid was the question if anyone would stop thinking of it as a Russian aggression. I guess not. It is a more exciting version of history, to be sure.
Well, it requires training, which to me implies it requires an effort to actually say something. So it's not like it reads your mind.
Presumably the telco figures they get more money that way. Or they don't want people to use 3g for data.
I don't know, if your subsidy theory holds true, the telcos over here seem to not have caught on. I pay 10 euro a month for a 384 kbps 3g connection, no data transfer limits apart from the speed. And the calls and SMSs aren't that expensive, either.
'course, you can probably also forget about things like warranties or safety testing.
And besides, HOW would you go about installing any kind of Net governance in the first place? State governments have some kind of chance of at least trying to govern the Internet, since they can pressure ISPs and other players with their legislative powers. I don't see everyone on the Internet, even just the companies that run the infrastructure, suddenly agreeing to be governed by some body of experts. Then again, maybe Zittrain is proposing something completely different than a new method for governance of the Internet - it's kind of hard to tell what he actually means to say from just reading TFA.
And the real losers, presumably, would be the scientists who took the gamble and failed.
They require that? I've traveled in Europe with a laptop, all the related cabling and a big external HD. No-one looked twice at any of that stuff, and that HD alone could have easily hidden a significant amount of explosives, basically being just a big metal box. If I had the illusion these security checks had anything to do with security, I'd be quite baffled.
If they let their security be compromised via a KNOWN exploit, I don't see that they'll have much luck with other systems than windows, either...
Maybe they've got sanity projects for their programmers: let them do cool stuff, too, every once in a while. Maybe they just figure it's worth making investments on neat tech without quite knowing for sure what it will end up being used for. If anyone's got enough resources to do that, it's MS.
Well no shit, but that's state secrets, not trade secrets.
What is WITH this founding fathers cult? Can't you trust logic and argumentation, must you invoke a bunch of ancients as some kind of semi-divine authority to back your opinions up?
How can a government agency even have trade secrets? What trade? Who's the competition they're protecting the secrets from?
Well, the main issue my source had with the requirement for the infiltrations to be subject to the proper judicial channels was that the proper judicial channels for wiretaps are basically just there to rubberstamp any requests the police make. "There are barcoded forms for that" was the way he described it...