Media of the paranormal is a multi-million dollar industry. Compare the return on investment with the tiny cost of figuring out how to create and then produce crop circles. This is a good business to be in, what with so much dumbing down of the culture going on. People are more gullible than ever.
A wilder theory is that this is leading to some sort of social control. In the past you had religion and the fear of eternal damnation to keep people in line. More recently it's been a fear of communism. Fear of "evil doers" is not very salient today. So how about fear of aliens? Gov't spacecraft masquerade as aliens, probe some butts to make it seem real, flash some lights across the sky, the motive being to keep people in line.
There are are so many comments about downloading as a moral issue. Was it a moral issue when the price of cd's kept going up despite the lower cost of cd's over lp's? Is it a moral issue when the price per song of legitimate mp3 downloads is nearly double that of the store bought cd?
This is not a moral issue. It's business, and the entire distribution model is changing. All businesses must adjust to a changing landscape. The music industry is no different. If the RIAA is "landscaped" out of existence it's not so bad. Something new will take it's place.
The fact that Internet technology rebalances the Jewish dominated media machine is what upsets Friedman and many in the mainstream media. Friedman's argument demonstrates once again that complaining about Israel is bad and even worse because of the speed and power of the Internet, yet criticism of others is okay.
The fact that Israel has been practicing ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians for many decades is a fact documented by may scholars, non-Jewish and Jewish alike. The Internet simply makes it easy to bypass mainstream media and get the word out. This is what upsets Friedman. He fears the democratization effect of the Internet. Arab viewpoints don't become magically invalid simply because they are expressed over a powerful medium such as the Internet.
To further the point, the Palestinians have no army, are manginalized, killed, tortured, have no hope, etc., thus, as guaranteed by international law they fight back against an occupying army in the only way they can, with suicide bombs. It IS deplorable, but it is also deplorable that Israel practices ethnic cleansing. Somehow Israeli atrocities get whitewashed or not reported in U.S. mainstream media. In Europe the news is more balanced, but then they get criticised for anti-Semitism.
When Arabs worry that they will be killed by Jews and Christians, this *IS EXACTLY* what is happening -- at least in Palestine. The U.S. sends military equipment to Israel and Israel carries out it's 100 year old Zionist goal of an Arab-free Israel. It IS a reality. It isn't hard to see that Arabs are worried about what will happen next. Thus the great sin committed by the Arabs is that while they once worried privately, not they are worrying publicly using new Internet technology.
The "4,000 Jews not showing up to work" story may very well be a lie -- it's not entirely clear at this point because of allegations of the interception of instant messages coming from Israel -- but the fact that the rumor exists -- even if false -- points to the suspicion many have of Israel and the fact that they have acted as an agent provoceteur in the past to achieve their goals.
Privoxy, formerly Junkbuster, kills webbugs, popups, cookies, advertising and can filter just about any string that comes into your computer via the web. It's fully configurable and open source. There's Linux, Windows and Mac versions available. Privoxy is in beta and fast approaching 3.0, but is very usable at present. I've been using it for a few months now.
But please mod this useful comment down. Slashdot is becomming more a community of Windows users than "nerds." In the past Junkbuster would have been the first comment to appear instead of all the whining and ain't it awful about the bad old advertising. Shit! Route around the damage and stop complaining!
Just drive up and down the highway scanning people with your implant scanner and your hacked credit card database on your trusty laptop. Now you know which motorists to pull over and rob: those making $100,000 or more.
Seriously, the reason for all this is that the U.S. is losing power. The international community is asking the U.S. to be a participant, rather than a world bully as exemplified by the Kyoto summit. The U.S. is as distrustful as an Israeli in the Middle East in giving up even a little power though. So we (the U.S.) are wrenching all over the place trying to find new sources of power, e.g. these goddamned hair-brain chip implant ideas.
Remember push technology? It didn't work in 1997 and it won't fly today. With AOL lawsuits over popups and suspicion over spyware, computer users are not going to give up control of their computers to advertisers. This is just another attempt to create BoobTube 2.0.
The opposite is what's needed in an ever increasing advertising dominated world.
But to be realistic, if a reasonable standard for advertising ever comes out, it should be supported, but until then the only thing to so is resist the attempted takeover.
If you're going to spread propaganda, which is the case anyway, consolidation provides greater control of airwaves/mindshare. Could anything suck more than American media? Does anybody listen to the radio anymore?
corporations are just a couple small steps away from forming their own armies, negating the need to go to Congress to by legislation in the first place.
Of course, in foreign countries without democracies, corporations *already* hire militaries to enforce their policies, usually keeping the populace at bay while they extract valuable resources.
If corporations get exemptions to the laws and can legally break into your computers, then I'd say they are only one small step away from forming their own armies.
Re:And here comes Carnivore...
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 1
The failure is not with electronic communication interception, but with conventional types of spying. This has been repeated over and over the last two days by government officials on TV.
How can Carnivore be effective when people generally understand that *all* their electronic communications are monitored? If terrorists know this then they're not going to emit signals in the first place. This is the problem, and carnivore won't solve it. The FBI is just using this situation to force this technology down the nation's throat. The nation has to revert to (beef up) conventional types of spying to counter terrorism.
We know about antitrust laws (more or less) as applied to monopolies from discussions of Microsoft's monopolistic practices. But the music industry is largely a cartel, "a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices" according to Webster.
What affect does anti-trust have on a cartel as opposed to a monopoly? Same? Different? Yellow?
When all is said and done -- after all the legal whining by the Publishers Assiciation, RIAA and the like -- they will end up with more, not less, legal rights. The average person will end up with less rights. In their quest for fairness, it will end up with more of the booty in their corner.
Rehnquist, according to Robert Ellis Smith, is an enemy of privacy, one of the guys who paved the way for Nixon to spy on adversaries in the pre-Watergate era.
People forget that one very good reason for protecting privacy is that it acts as a control mechanism on the powerful, the would-be tyrants of the world.
It doesn't matter that the Constitution doesn't make specific reference to privacy. Besides eavesdropping, that wasn't much of an issue 225 years ago. The intent of the founders was to protect and dignify the individual human being by making certain rights available to all. I'm sure the founders would have included privacy as one of those rights had they lived in today's culture; because privacy enhances humanity.
Our founders experienced kings and tyrants and set out to see that their abuses didn't happen again. That's why the US has it's system of government. And so privacy is one of those ingredients that creates a check on the powerful.
Playing devil's advocate: In the 70's, Lauren Nader (sister of Ralph Nader) pointed out that when you live in a nuclear era, you by definition live in a police state, and therefore cannot expect privacy. Her point is that the dangers of modern technology (a nuke in a suitcase) almost necessitate constant surveillence, the ultimate end of the privacy spectrum.
However, I'd rather live with some risk in life rather than live in a police state. It's analogous to some people seeing a bug and feeling compelled to kill it rather than seeing that this is just life and it's not always clean and sanitized like an indoor 30th story office.
Similarly, if there is risk in a nuclear age, I'd rather live with some of that risk rather than lose what seems to me to be god given inalienable right to privacy.
Right. Also, a multinational may operate in 80 or more countries, and you may be able to attack it with legislation etc. in one, but there are 79 others you haven't touched. A government, on the other hand, is localized in one country. Corporations clearly have the upper hand.
Concentrations of power of the multinational kind are clearly something the founding fathers would have been very suspicious of. It may be that strategically the US gov is allowing companies to expand to mega-proportions as part of world-wide imperialism, and later when the world is definitely, without a doubt, conquered, the reins will be pulled in. However, that would be done by the United Nations, also under the control of the US.
Me, I just want to live in a healthy ecosystem, where people can be industrious and grow their families. We hardly have a *sustainable* ecomomic model currently.
But consider this: the FBI is tasked with doing things "legally." So while the NSA and CIA operate as a black hat (illegal) operation, they can still pass intelligence on to the FBI guys. No matter that evidence was gathered illegally, just as long as it "looks" like it was. I'm wondering if that's the FBI's job.
I mean, as much as I love technology, it seems that we are moving into an era where technology is used to oppress the average person.
People say, "I don't have anything to hide," but forget that the Fourth Amendment has nothing to do with protecting wrongdoers. Its existence has everything to do with keeping in check the power of kings, tyrants and their dysfunctional police forces!
Anyone who has too much power will abuse it. History shows this to be true. People won't stand for being oppressed by technology. However, the British people living with constant surveillence really baffles me. What were they thinking? Isn't the murder rate in all of the UK about 5/year? And in NYC alone it's about 300/year? The British are a disappointment, but they either "rule the world" or they rule their own people I suppose. Where's the middle ground in the UK? There's obviously not much belief in liberty there. And that's pretty sad since Americans share so much in common.
"In July, the Tampa, Florida, field office sent an e-mail to other agents, including Thomas at the FBI lab, offering a slide show explaining how a militia group used the Internet to communicate."
So what? Is being a militia group illegal? Does everybody need to be monitored?
Was being a cult in Waco illegal? It's not something I would choose, but whatever they did, it was bad enough to be burned to death.
As long as the FBI doesn't break that law as part of enforcing the law, I have no problem with what they do. But history shows this group routinely breaks the law. At some point you either shit or get off the pot: enforce the law or leave people the hell alone.
In the FBI's defense, they are saddled with "justifying" everything within the law. The CIA and NSA, on the other hand, can break the law all day long and get away with it. Different structures, different sets of accountability.
Someday, consiousness will expanded, until then, do your best. Until then, know that the prison guards are often as sick as the inmates.
One way to guarantee a black market in anything is setting the price too high. If CD's were $5 each, who would take the time to trade them online? Isn't there a price point at which pirating would end; would be unfeasable?
The music industry seems to have *always* been immune to price competition, and now they whine and complain when their distribution model changes. Yet companies across this nation have to change and adjust when other market changes occur. However these music people just whine, complain and get congress to act on their behalf. What's going on here?
Why don't all businesses get *special* protections from the government? Pehaps you only get the special attention when you have lots of money to peddle influence, money from CD overcharges.
First, what the Russian did was wrong. But before corporations and the FBI were on the net, if a problem like this had occurred in the past it would have been seen as a technical problem. People stealing stuff from servers? Where's the technical problem allowing it? After an assessment of the problem, the solution would have been a technical one: fixing the security holes.
But it seems to me that what the FBI did is a dangerous precedent, using "enforcement" to solve these problems because:
There are jurisdictional problems here. How can they reach across borders and that be legal?
The FBI has a very troubled past, from it's Hoover days to the burning of Waco. The nations's top law enforcers should never break the law as part of enforcing the law, and yet that is what we see over and over. If you break the law to enforce it you create lawlessness, which is a pointless way of life.
As mentioned above, these are technical problems and should be solved with technical solutions. Using law enforcement is the lowest form of problem solving on the planet. Leave doors open and some people will walk right through them. So close the doors! Isn't it clear that this is the intelligent way to solve this problem?
When all is said and done, how many times can you "trick" people across their borders into America? Where's the long term solution? Folks, it ain't with the FBI.
There is no "enforcement" solution. You can enforce all day long and it still won't solve theproblem. We need to get back to the original methods of solving these technical problems. However, one thing the FBI could do, for example, is demand (encourage) Microsoft turn off java and javascript in their shipping products by default. Why don't they encourage greater security from all software producers? These would be positive attempts at solving the problem. The customer is protected by proper architecture.
Perhaps the FBI isn't in the business of "encouragement," but I just don't see how law enforcement in the physical world translates to the digital, especially when computer security, especially with Microsoft, is low and our government has bent over backwards to discourage strong encryption.
Slashdot Mirror
Next they'll be reviewing your shopping patterns, how much beer you bought, how many condoms and other items from which to draw a profile.
...cannot be trusted.
"Please put this number on your do not call list," and in a week or two you won't get any telemarketing calls.
A wilder theory is that this is leading to some sort of social control. In the past you had religion and the fear of eternal damnation to keep people in line. More recently it's been a fear of communism. Fear of "evil doers" is not very salient today. So how about fear of aliens? Gov't spacecraft masquerade as aliens, probe some butts to make it seem real, flash some lights across the sky, the motive being to keep people in line.
This is not a moral issue. It's business, and the entire distribution model is changing. All businesses must adjust to a changing landscape. The music industry is no different. If the RIAA is "landscaped" out of existence it's not so bad. Something new will take it's place.
This sort of thing has been done before.
To make php use the simpler open/close tags, look at /etc/php.ini and change the short_open_tag variable to On.
The fact that Israel has been practicing ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians for many decades is a fact documented by may scholars, non-Jewish and Jewish alike. The Internet simply makes it easy to bypass mainstream media and get the word out. This is what upsets Friedman. He fears the democratization effect of the Internet. Arab viewpoints don't become magically invalid simply because they are expressed over a powerful medium such as the Internet.
To further the point, the Palestinians have no army, are manginalized, killed, tortured, have no hope, etc., thus, as guaranteed by international law they fight back against an occupying army in the only way they can, with suicide bombs. It IS deplorable, but it is also deplorable that Israel practices ethnic cleansing. Somehow Israeli atrocities get whitewashed or not reported in U.S. mainstream media. In Europe the news is more balanced, but then they get criticised for anti-Semitism.
When Arabs worry that they will be killed by Jews and Christians, this *IS EXACTLY* what is happening -- at least in Palestine. The U.S. sends military equipment to Israel and Israel carries out it's 100 year old Zionist goal of an Arab-free Israel. It IS a reality. It isn't hard to see that Arabs are worried about what will happen next. Thus the great sin committed by the Arabs is that while they once worried privately, not they are worrying publicly using new Internet technology.
The "4,000 Jews not showing up to work" story may very well be a lie -- it's not entirely clear at this point because of allegations of the interception of instant messages coming from Israel -- but the fact that the rumor exists -- even if false -- points to the suspicion many have of Israel and the fact that they have acted as an agent provoceteur in the past to achieve their goals.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FirstPost i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) FirstPost/20020311
But please mod this useful comment down. Slashdot is becomming more a community of Windows users than "nerds." In the past Junkbuster would have been the first comment to appear instead of all the whining and ain't it awful about the bad old advertising. Shit! Route around the damage and stop complaining!
Seriously, the reason for all this is that the U.S. is losing power. The international community is asking the U.S. to be a participant, rather than a world bully as exemplified by the Kyoto summit. The U.S. is as distrustful as an Israeli in the Middle East in giving up even a little power though. So we (the U.S.) are wrenching all over the place trying to find new sources of power, e.g. these goddamned hair-brain chip implant ideas.
The opposite is what's needed in an ever increasing advertising dominated world.
But to be realistic, if a reasonable standard for advertising ever comes out, it should be supported, but until then the only thing to so is resist the attempted takeover.
If you're going to spread propaganda, which is the case anyway, consolidation provides greater control of airwaves/mindshare. Could anything suck more than American media? Does anybody listen to the radio anymore?
Of course, in foreign countries without democracies, corporations *already* hire militaries to enforce their policies, usually keeping the populace at bay while they extract valuable resources.
If corporations get exemptions to the laws and can legally break into your computers, then I'd say they are only one small step away from forming their own armies.
How can Carnivore be effective when people generally understand that *all* their electronic communications are monitored? If terrorists know this then they're not going to emit signals in the first place. This is the problem, and carnivore won't solve it. The FBI is just using this situation to force this technology down the nation's throat. The nation has to revert to (beef up) conventional types of spying to counter terrorism.
What affect does anti-trust have on a cartel as opposed to a monopoly? Same? Different? Yellow?
When all is said and done -- after all the legal whining by the Publishers Assiciation, RIAA and the like -- they will end up with more, not less, legal rights. The average person will end up with less rights. In their quest for fairness, it will end up with more of the booty in their corner.
Rehnquist, according to Robert Ellis Smith, is an enemy of privacy, one of the guys who paved the way for Nixon to spy on adversaries in the pre-Watergate era.
It doesn't matter that the Constitution doesn't make specific reference to privacy. Besides eavesdropping, that wasn't much of an issue 225 years ago. The intent of the founders was to protect and dignify the individual human being by making certain rights available to all. I'm sure the founders would have included privacy as one of those rights had they lived in today's culture; because privacy enhances humanity.
Our founders experienced kings and tyrants and set out to see that their abuses didn't happen again. That's why the US has it's system of government. And so privacy is one of those ingredients that creates a check on the powerful.
Playing devil's advocate: In the 70's, Lauren Nader (sister of Ralph Nader) pointed out that when you live in a nuclear era, you by definition live in a police state, and therefore cannot expect privacy. Her point is that the dangers of modern technology (a nuke in a suitcase) almost necessitate constant surveillence, the ultimate end of the privacy spectrum.
However, I'd rather live with some risk in life rather than live in a police state. It's analogous to some people seeing a bug and feeling compelled to kill it rather than seeing that this is just life and it's not always clean and sanitized like an indoor 30th story office. Similarly, if there is risk in a nuclear age, I'd rather live with some of that risk rather than lose what seems to me to be god given inalienable right to privacy.
Concentrations of power of the multinational kind are clearly something the founding fathers would have been very suspicious of. It may be that strategically the US gov is allowing companies to expand to mega-proportions as part of world-wide imperialism, and later when the world is definitely, without a doubt, conquered, the reins will be pulled in. However, that would be done by the United Nations, also under the control of the US.
Me, I just want to live in a healthy ecosystem, where people can be industrious and grow their families. We hardly have a *sustainable* ecomomic model currently.
I mean, as much as I love technology, it seems that we are moving into an era where technology is used to oppress the average person.
People say, "I don't have anything to hide," but forget that the Fourth Amendment has nothing to do with protecting wrongdoers. Its existence has everything to do with keeping in check the power of kings, tyrants and their dysfunctional police forces!
Anyone who has too much power will abuse it. History shows this to be true. People won't stand for being oppressed by technology. However, the British people living with constant surveillence really baffles me. What were they thinking? Isn't the murder rate in all of the UK about 5/year? And in NYC alone it's about 300/year? The British are a disappointment, but they either "rule the world" or they rule their own people I suppose. Where's the middle ground in the UK? There's obviously not much belief in liberty there. And that's pretty sad since Americans share so much in common.
So what? Is being a militia group illegal? Does everybody need to be monitored?
Was being a cult in Waco illegal? It's not something I would choose, but whatever they did, it was bad enough to be burned to death.
As long as the FBI doesn't break that law as part of enforcing the law, I have no problem with what they do. But history shows this group routinely breaks the law. At some point you either shit or get off the pot: enforce the law or leave people the hell alone.
In the FBI's defense, they are saddled with "justifying" everything within the law. The CIA and NSA, on the other hand, can break the law all day long and get away with it. Different structures, different sets of accountability.
Someday, consiousness will expanded, until then, do your best. Until then, know that the prison guards are often as sick as the inmates.
The music industry seems to have *always* been immune to price competition, and now they whine and complain when their distribution model changes. Yet companies across this nation have to change and adjust when other market changes occur. However these music people just whine, complain and get congress to act on their behalf. What's going on here?
Why don't all businesses get *special* protections from the government? Pehaps you only get the special attention when you have lots of money to peddle influence, money from CD overcharges.
But it seems to me that what the FBI did is a dangerous precedent, using "enforcement" to solve these problems because:
There is no "enforcement" solution. You can enforce all day long and it still won't solve theproblem. We need to get back to the original methods of solving these technical problems. However, one thing the FBI could do, for example, is demand (encourage) Microsoft turn off java and javascript in their shipping products by default. Why don't they encourage greater security from all software producers? These would be positive attempts at solving the problem. The customer is protected by proper architecture.
Perhaps the FBI isn't in the business of "encouragement," but I just don't see how law enforcement in the physical world translates to the digital, especially when computer security, especially with Microsoft, is low and our government has bent over backwards to discourage strong encryption.
Gee, I've been thwarting banner ads for years now. It's called Junkbuster, and it's at www.waldherr.org/junkbuster