Define how getting you to remove completely pointless data from your account is them "failing at their core competency"? If anything your example proves that their rules have just benefited them, and the accuracy of their aggregated data.
Simple. I removed ALL of the data about me, only a bit of it was useless to them; However, now even the correct & very valuable information such as my job title, past education, etc is deleted (well, they probably still have a copy of it somewhere...).
The point of failure was when they acted so heavy-fisted that it scared me into shying away from giving them more information about me, simply because it might be considered "invalid", and thus it's better to not list anything than to risk the data causing my account's validity to be challenged (read: INSTANTLY BANNED WITHOUT WARNING).
In the future I'll likely keep the same attitude as I have now. Limit my data exposure to reduce risk -- This is a big failure if you're in the business of gathering info about people.
Dealing with invididual eggs is just too cumbersome.
So instead, I carry all in one large basket.
What could possibly go wrong?
The mass of all the eggs in the world in one basket causes the eggs at the bottom to break, the ones above fall into place and crack too; The eggs quickly begin accelerating towards the bottom of the basket where the speed of their collisions allows the density to surpass the gravity well tipping point, and a new black-hole is born, it quickly gobbles up a chunk of the Earth before vanishing in a burst of Gama rays that extinguishes all life on the planet.
You should here my explanation of why you shouldn't leave the water on while you brush your teeth...
Forgive the additional reply, but WRT to "John Smith" being banned -- Well, that's a folk singer's name. Perhaps people are reporting other John Smiths thinking "Hey, this isn't the singer I searched for".
In short, it could just be a bunch of dumbass Google+ users banning people by reporting them, and Google not having a good algo in place that says: 1) Notify before ban w/ dispute resolution option. 2) If many same-name's get reported, look into the cause, perhaps it's a common name and 3) Ban the reporting fools -- You know they reported too many people (see also #1).
This is not what Google is doing. They allow multiple people with the same name, it's just underage or fraudulent info gets you banned.
I removed all of my "correct, yet questionable" data, eg: Location: Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy (A suburb of the Virgo Galactic Cluster) -- just in case. Actually, I removed ALL of the optional data about me, except for my name. Way to fail at your core competency Google (that is, getting me to allow them to aggregate my data).
With all the fucking automated badassery that is google, why do they not simply send you a notice or email:
ATTENTION!
We are assholes, and thus this is your first and final warning before we lock you out of your account for-fucking-ever!
Please be advised, there is some questionable material that we do not think is correct on your profile (but we really don't know, someone probably just reported you, so we sent you this letter).
If you do not dispute this within 3 days access to your account will be denied, but we'll keep aggegating data about you when you search or use Youtube, etc.
You can Fuck Right off Human Slime, Google's Faceless Automated Android Systems.
IMHO, this would be much better than what they are currently doing...
You can place labels "inside" other labels (just like nested folders).
So, use them as if they were folders. What's the big deal? The only difference is that you can place the same message in multiple "folders" with Gmail's labels -- instead of making duplicates. (Sort of like a hard-link, where all you ever use is the links, and the actual file is inside Google somewhere...)
Yeah, but realistically, the common people can't alter significantly the corrupt government through legal channels, or amass a militia to over-throw it.
... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [WRT the rights of Life, Liberty, Equality and Happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
- Declaration of Independence (United States of America).
Since we can't really exercise our "Right of the People to alter or to abolish" this corrupt government, thanks in large part to a massive, powerful and secretive Military industrial complex, the only outcome can be an eventual collapse from within, or an effective Dictatorship (which also may arise after a collapse). Dictatorships give rise to Monarchies as their heirs replace the leaders, then, well, you know what happens next.
Everything happens in cycles. Historic figures, despite their ENORMOUS effort to do so, haven't been capable of warning a majority of the current populous of repeating the vicious cycle...
...And due to the time dilation effects of intense gravity wells, we can simply travel to the black-hole, extract their quantum holographic imprint that still exists at the event horizon, and study them (in roughly one more Universe worth of time, providing it takes us about one billion years to create Light-Speed travel.)
I already do this -- I refer to my own software by the SHA-1 hash of the GIT commit.
"After you merge e49fe with 1fef3 make sure the unit tests don't show regressions WRT the issues addressed in 8fc21."
(Referring to e49fe572c4ca9ada2ee470eede12735898dfe3a1, 1fef37cfc05a29708d9f36cd303d28a2c4987928, and 8fc21ec53c8e3fc465929b17db3d47a93a82b97a respectively.)
To avoid confusion instead of version numbers we also refer to specific not-tagged builds by their abbreviated SHA-1 + platform. "Nightly" is sort of ambiguous since there are several daily builds, many patches, and depending on your timezone the term is a misnomer -- Referring to menu items this way would be ludicrous (unless, of course, you're an AI -- for which labels are merely a series glyphs representing a specific function).
I think the name is intended to be a sports reference, to the list of set plays that a team develops ahead of time.
Agreed.
The use of metaphors referring to team sports is nearly universal in corporates and Fedland. "She's not a team player" is about the worst thing that could be said of someone.
...that is, Unless you're talking about a "higher up" eg: a "Team Leader" -- These are not required to "play by the rules"; See below.
You're expected to "take one for the team" when your boss screws up. And so on.
Additionally, you may "take one for the team" when your boss simply screws you. In either event it doesn't sound like your "Team Leader" is being a "Team Player"...
So, in RIM's target market, "playbook" is intended to hook into key parts of the cult-ure.
Thus the tablet supplier must be a company with a name that only a "Team Leader" with a "Team" of "brown-nosers" would love; Clearly, it will be RIM's job.
I'll hold my breath on this one. We've been fed the "we think we've seen Higgs" enough times now that until some repeatable data comes down the line, I'm just going to assume its screwy instrumentation or glitches.
I agree, until we have solid evidence I think these "Maybe we saw the Higgs Boson!" stories are a needless wasting many of Laming's & Stoney's electrons.
A sound plan; I had a similar idea, except that there would be an unused read only copy of the factory BIOS that the "rescue code" operation would simply duplicate into the "Active BIOS" area -- This way you wouldn't even need the external recovery image (on a USB or disk) in order to fix a corrupted BIOS.
MS games have in-app purchasing. I just upgraded the arcade game "Sonic Adventure" to "Sonic Adventure DX" (Director's Cut) from within the game. Sure, it required a stop over at the Marketplace to confirm the purchase -- but thereafter I was returned to the still running regular release of the game. I played until the "(X) Download Complete: Sonic Adventure DX" message popped up in the game and I pressed the indicated button to select the "Play Now" option for the "Upgrade".
Many Xbox360 games have DLC and an in-game button that launches you into the "Purchase & Upgrade" menu for said content. IMHO, expansion packs qualify as upgrades -- The full version of Doom is an "upgrade" from the shareware version, and the only thing that's different is the.WAD and maybe a few bits of the executable.
Not sure if the stop over in the Guide Menu / Marketplace would shield MS from infringement, but you can clearly "upgrade" a game while it is running.
I mostly agree with you, but here's the thing though: The "ammunition" and "weapons" in a cyber war are security exploits. So, Instead of releasing bug reports and/or patches "Cyber-Warfare" benefits by keeping the exploits secret and unpatched.
Instead of creating superior weaponry and advancing the state of the art, Cyber Warfare seeks to ensure that the state of the art is retarded. Cyber-Weapons only exist only if we all have unpatched security vulnerabilities.
Additionally, I run all my programs as their own user and in appropriate groups (Pulse Audio hates this). This way, FireFox has no access to data needed by Gimp or my Apache test server except the files I've explicitly marked as "everyone".
Bah! None of the commenters got what I wanted to say, which means I wasn't clear.
It's clear to me, because I am a creator of software who gets paid to work on FLOSS projects. It's no different monetarily for me than getting paid to work on proprietary projects -- In either case I don't get paid any more when duplications are made by the publisher (the proprietary company might, but the actual creators don't). However, with the "copy-left" works I create anyone can benefit from my work, and choose to fund my future projects (released works are also free advertising for new works) -- On my own "personal" projects the more people that duplicate them, the more exposure and donations I get, thus the more money I make...
So you are right that the government gives the copyright to the creator so that for a limited time she can gain some money from the work.
WRT the emboldened statement above "a limited time" should not be THREE GENERATIONS. My lifetime + The lifetime of my children (ending ~30 years after my death) + the lifetime of my grandchildren (ending ~70 years after my death). That fourth generation won't have any copies to duplicate 100+ years after my creations' short lived successes. Thus, copyright now serves another important and dangerous function -- It will rob us of our public domain, especially if DRM is involved (Hey, just use DRM on that scarce copy that's now considered public domain material, and it's illegal to copy it again!).
Copyright should only last 5-10 years, that's plenty of time to make money off of a work. Don't believe me? Look at the damn sales figures! Even "cult-classics" peak within this time-frame.
This all boils down to one question: Why do additional duplicates cost anything after the work has been authored? In an era, The Information Age, where data duplications are in essentially infinite supply economics states that: Despite the cost of creating, price shall tend towards zero.
Get people to pay for the act of creating, not duplicating -- Otherwise an infinite supply of copies destroys your ability to monetize. It is the act of creating that costs so much. The creators (even when mimicked) can't be duplicated. Copies are just advertising that increases demand for new works or improvements to existing works.
Humans want new creations, where there is demand there will be people meeting those demands. Thus, the fashion industry functions wonderfully with no copyright or patent protections, only trademarks...
there are legitimate reasons to keep certain pieces of information from the public.
No there are not. The problem is that you think secrets must exist in order for diplomacy to work. What if all those secret
diplomatic meetings, and back-room deals were made public? Are you truly saying that it's necessary to express our political agenda publicly -- to the people --, but then to have lies, secrets and agendas that do not abide by the previously expressed stances?
It's people thinking like you that ensure we can never control our own governments. Additionally: Military secrets should be kept secret before they are carried out. A brief while after a military operation is performed, (IN PUBLIC), should it not be a matter of public record? Keeping the horrors of war from the people is EVIL. It allows heinous acts that none would condone to continue. How else can we judge whether we should further support a militaristic effort?
The fact that the common man has no idea what's really going on in the world and has no way of finding out is unacceptable -- We only have a vague sense that it's out of our control and there is widespread corruption afoot. How can we weigh our choices for leaders and representatives if we are prohibited from knowing how well or poorly they're doing their jobs.
If a not-so ethical deal must be made with a foreign official, then let it be known. If it was truly a necessary act the public will understand -- Provided that the relevant truths are known to us so that we may understand what necessitated the questionable act.
The truth is all or nothing. You can't share bits and pieces of truthy and keep the majority secret, then hope the people of the world to understand your actions -- They will be frustrated by the lack of supporting truths and you will be frustrated by the lack of trust and cooperation. However, you also can not operate above the law if the people can hold you accountable for your actions.
You sir, and those like you, sicken me. You are enemies of the truth -- A truth the people actually can handle, if only it is consistently made fully public.
It looks like this: DNT: 1 Firefox4 and IE9 Support this, last I heard Chrome didn't (I hear there is a 3rd party plugin now). All those advertising bastards need do is not track people with those settings. Additionally, use a plugin like CookieMonster to manage your cookie settings.
Them: "Without cookies how will we know if you want to opt out?!"
Us: "Problem Solved. Read the DNT header fool." Them: "We need cookies to makes sure people aren't fraudulently clicking ads, and to count clicks"
Us: "Not our problem; Besides, Cookies can be cleared -- Store your clicks & hits in YOUR OWN damn database!" Them: "... [under breath] But we don't have to, and we won't comply sanely without mandatory regulation."
They'll cry us a river when it comes down to strict regulations -- The only bad thing is that the law writers don't understand technology enough to just say: "Advertisers must honor the 'DNT: 1' (do not track header) as if the user had followed the advertiser's opt-out procedure, and [insert other shit they should do like delete user records and not set cookies -- though I can manage my own damn cookies, but thanks]."
Stranded with only a hatchet, a pan, some fishing gear, a warm coat & "snow pants" I soon realized I needed shelter to survive the -40 degree nights so I built a suitable shelter in the lee of a tree. After nearly being caught in a storm too far from shelter, I stayed until Spring.
Being totally disconnected from everyone and all electronics (they froze, and died) while surviving off the land (ice fishing at night, collecting firewood and sleeping during the day) for three solid months changed my perspective about what's really important. I spent a lot of time thinking while "camping" under the cold clear sky -- Shooting stars can be seen at least once every two hours, you can see our satellites orbiting with the naked eye, and the Aurora Borealis can appear in a myriad of shapes and colors, once as if the whole sky was a giant red wagon wheel.
Our temperately stable planet is so beautiful yet insignificant -- The whole thing could disappear and the universe wouldn't notice at all, only our solar system might, a bit. The only real thing that matters now is getting off this rock so all our eggs aren't in one basket... We're so self important, petty and insignificant, but it's technology and sharing of knowledge that can make us great, if we put aside not-so-different differences we may even be able to survive the heat-death of the universe by creating our own stars.
Perhaps it was more of an "anti-geek camp", but I'm truly more driven, easy-going and appreciative of all the amazing technology I have... I now walk away from wastes of time, enjoy in camaraderie, collaboration and contributing to software projects, and think of benefits and consequences in terms far beyond my own life-span. It was a true "thinking man's" experience, to say the least.
Ok... so, tell me why this less secure distro is worth wasting anyone's time over considering that my writable USB gets updates as soon as they're released to my distro, sans burning / installing a new ISO... Booting from a clean USB every so often? Hmm, yeah, I can do that too.
Let's not forget -- If you put the end users in charge of their own security, they won't have any. Seriously, once I talked to a guy who figured out how to bypass the "your password has expired, choose a new password" security feature. Keep the same password by changing it 5 times in a row to exhaust the previously-used password buffer.
You seriously think they'll take the time to ensure they have the latest version of their distro burned -- Well, unless it's someone else's job (say, the PROGRAM itself) to keep the users up to date, it won't happen.
If it's not updating itself, it's not worth my time, honestly.
As others have noted, there's nothing to see here, it isn't any more secure than any other distro. If you're already mindful of security this distro isn't going to help you be any more secure.
LPS differs from traditional operating systems in that it isn't continually patched.
BRILLIANT! That means that any flaws in your OS or applications (web browser) WON'T BE PATCHED -- Get a clue people, this is not made to be more secure, this is just plain asinine. I'm afraid to discover any other steps they've taken to "improve security" or "harden" the systems -- LMAO!
Slashdot Mirror
This explains why my FB account: "Lando Calrissian of Bespin" got deactivated. Oh well. I can still be Mr. Soontobe Oppressed...
Then, being that I'm a typical basement dwelling Slashdotter, I shall change my name from "Enyiu" to "Richard Radon."
(It has a nice ring to it -- Perhaps I should make sure there is no active radio personality using the name first.)
Define how getting you to remove completely pointless data from your account is them "failing at their core competency"? If anything your example proves that their rules have just benefited them, and the accuracy of their aggregated data.
Simple. I removed ALL of the data about me, only a bit of it was useless to them; However, now even the correct & very valuable information such as my job title, past education, etc is deleted (well, they probably still have a copy of it somewhere...).
The point of failure was when they acted so heavy-fisted that it scared me into shying away from giving them more information about me, simply because it might be considered "invalid", and thus it's better to not list anything than to risk the data causing my account's validity to be challenged (read: INSTANTLY BANNED WITHOUT WARNING).
In the future I'll likely keep the same attitude as I have now. Limit my data exposure to reduce risk -- This is a big failure if you're in the business of gathering info about people.
Dealing with invididual eggs is just too cumbersome. So instead, I carry all in one large basket. What could possibly go wrong?
The mass of all the eggs in the world in one basket causes the eggs at the bottom to break, the ones above fall into place and crack too; The eggs quickly begin accelerating towards the bottom of the basket where the speed of their collisions allows the density to surpass the gravity well tipping point, and a new black-hole is born, it quickly gobbles up a chunk of the Earth before vanishing in a burst of Gama rays that extinguishes all life on the planet.
You should here my explanation of why you shouldn't leave the water on while you brush your teeth...
Forgive the additional reply, but WRT to "John Smith" being banned -- Well, that's a folk singer's name. Perhaps people are reporting other John Smiths thinking "Hey, this isn't the singer I searched for".
In short, it could just be a bunch of dumbass Google+ users banning people by reporting them, and Google not having a good algo in place that says: 1) Notify before ban w/ dispute resolution option. 2) If many same-name's get reported, look into the cause, perhaps it's a common name and 3) Ban the reporting fools -- You know they reported too many people (see also #1).
This is not what Google is doing. They allow multiple people with the same name, it's just underage or fraudulent info gets you banned.
I removed all of my "correct, yet questionable" data, eg: Location: Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy (A suburb of the Virgo Galactic Cluster) -- just in case. Actually, I removed ALL of the optional data about me, except for my name. Way to fail at your core competency Google (that is, getting me to allow them to aggregate my data).
With all the fucking automated badassery that is google, why do they not simply send you a notice or email:
IMHO, this would be much better than what they are currently doing...
You can place labels "inside" other labels (just like nested folders).
So, use them as if they were folders. What's the big deal? The only difference is that you can place the same message in multiple "folders" with Gmail's labels -- instead of making duplicates. (Sort of like a hard-link, where all you ever use is the links, and the actual file is inside Google somewhere...)
So you're saying that the military-industrial complex is too big to fail. [Soon] Welcome to the next level of governing: Dictatorship.
Yeah, but realistically, the common people can't alter significantly the corrupt government through legal channels, or amass a militia to over-throw it.
- Declaration of Independence (United States of America).
Since we can't really exercise our "Right of the People to alter or to abolish" this corrupt government, thanks in large part to a massive, powerful and secretive Military industrial complex, the only outcome can be an eventual collapse from within, or an effective Dictatorship (which also may arise after a collapse). Dictatorships give rise to Monarchies as their heirs replace the leaders, then, well, you know what happens next.
Everything happens in cycles. Historic figures, despite their ENORMOUS effort to do so, haven't been capable of warning a majority of the current populous of repeating the vicious cycle...
Now, imagine life evolved there...
...And due to the time dilation effects of intense gravity wells, we can simply travel to the black-hole, extract their quantum holographic imprint that still exists at the event horizon, and study them (in roughly one more Universe worth of time, providing it takes us about one billion years to create Light-Speed travel.)
So basically, there's a freakin' huge ocean floating around (well, falling into a black hole) out in the middle of space?
Ka- WOOSH!
I already do this -- I refer to my own software by the SHA-1 hash of the GIT commit.
"After you merge e49fe with 1fef3 make sure the unit tests don't show regressions WRT the issues addressed in 8fc21."
(Referring to e49fe572c4ca9ada2ee470eede12735898dfe3a1, 1fef37cfc05a29708d9f36cd303d28a2c4987928, and 8fc21ec53c8e3fc465929b17db3d47a93a82b97a respectively.)
To avoid confusion instead of version numbers we also refer to specific not-tagged builds by their abbreviated SHA-1 + platform. "Nightly" is sort of ambiguous since there are several daily builds, many patches, and depending on your timezone the term is a misnomer -- Referring to menu items this way would be ludicrous (unless, of course, you're an AI -- for which labels are merely a series glyphs representing a specific function).
There's that word again; "lighter". Why are things so much lighter in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?
Wrong "lighter" -- They're talking the portable device that "can summon up fire without flint or tinder."
"This new battery makes my laptop lighter." Which is to say: The battery is now responsible for the device's spontaneous combustion capabilities.
Software that is very flawed can contribute to overheating, really bad code (especially in firmware) may cause a meltdown or small lap flame.
I'm positive that widespread pyromania is responsible for the term's proliferation and mistaken "positive" connotations by others.
Just for the record:-
I think the name is intended to be a sports reference, to the list of set plays that a team develops ahead of time.
Agreed.
The use of metaphors referring to team sports is nearly universal in corporates and Fedland. "She's not a team player" is about the worst thing that could be said of someone.
...that is, Unless you're talking about a "higher up" eg: a "Team Leader" -- These are not required to "play by the rules"; See below.
You're expected to "take one for the team" when your boss screws up. And so on.
Additionally, you may "take one for the team" when your boss simply screws you. In either event it doesn't sound like your "Team Leader" is being a "Team Player"...
So, in RIM's target market, "playbook" is intended to hook into key parts of the cult-ure.
Thus the tablet supplier must be a company with a name that only a "Team Leader" with a "Team" of "brown-nosers" would love; Clearly, it will be RIM's job.
I'll hold my breath on this one. We've been fed the "we think we've seen Higgs" enough times now that until some repeatable data comes down the line, I'm just going to assume its screwy instrumentation or glitches.
I agree, until we have solid evidence I think these "Maybe we saw the Higgs Boson!" stories are a needless wasting many of Laming's & Stoney's electrons.
Well, I'm questioning all of the questionable questioning -- without nesting or overflowing a stack!
quest_t questions = initialQuestion();
do { questions = question( questions ); }
while ( questionable( questions ) );
I can't help it, I'm a C programmer who never uses recursion or nesting where simple iteration will do.
A sound plan; I had a similar idea, except that there would be an unused read only copy of the factory BIOS that the "rescue code" operation would simply duplicate into the "Active BIOS" area -- This way you wouldn't even need the external recovery image (on a USB or disk) in order to fix a corrupted BIOS.
MS games have in-app purchasing. I just upgraded the arcade game "Sonic Adventure" to "Sonic Adventure DX" (Director's Cut) from within the game. Sure, it required a stop over at the Marketplace to confirm the purchase -- but thereafter I was returned to the still running regular release of the game. I played until the "(X) Download Complete: Sonic Adventure DX" message popped up in the game and I pressed the indicated button to select the "Play Now" option for the "Upgrade".
Many Xbox360 games have DLC and an in-game button that launches you into the "Purchase & Upgrade" menu for said content. IMHO, expansion packs qualify as upgrades -- The full version of Doom is an "upgrade" from the shareware version, and the only thing that's different is the .WAD and maybe a few bits of the executable.
Not sure if the stop over in the Guide Menu / Marketplace would shield MS from infringement, but you can clearly "upgrade" a game while it is running.
I mostly agree with you, but here's the thing though: The "ammunition" and "weapons" in a cyber war are security exploits. So, Instead of releasing bug reports and/or patches "Cyber-Warfare" benefits by keeping the exploits secret and unpatched.
Instead of creating superior weaponry and advancing the state of the art, Cyber Warfare seeks to ensure that the state of the art is retarded. Cyber-Weapons only exist only if we all have unpatched security vulnerabilities.
Additionally, I run all my programs as their own user and in appropriate groups (Pulse Audio hates this). This way, FireFox has no access to data needed by Gimp or my Apache test server except the files I've explicitly marked as "everyone".
Bah! None of the commenters got what I wanted to say, which means I wasn't clear.
It's clear to me, because I am a creator of software who gets paid to work on FLOSS projects. It's no different monetarily for me than getting paid to work on proprietary projects -- In either case I don't get paid any more when duplications are made by the publisher (the proprietary company might, but the actual creators don't). However, with the "copy-left" works I create anyone can benefit from my work, and choose to fund my future projects (released works are also free advertising for new works) -- On my own "personal" projects the more people that duplicate them, the more exposure and donations I get, thus the more money I make...
So you are right that the government gives the copyright to the creator so that for a limited time she can gain some money from the work.
WRT the emboldened statement above "a limited time" should not be THREE GENERATIONS. My lifetime + The lifetime of my children (ending ~30 years after my death) + the lifetime of my grandchildren (ending ~70 years after my death). That fourth generation won't have any copies to duplicate 100+ years after my creations' short lived successes. Thus, copyright now serves another important and dangerous function -- It will rob us of our public domain, especially if DRM is involved (Hey, just use DRM on that scarce copy that's now considered public domain material, and it's illegal to copy it again!).
Copyright should only last 5-10 years, that's plenty of time to make money off of a work. Don't believe me? Look at the damn sales figures! Even "cult-classics" peak within this time-frame.
This all boils down to one question: Why do additional duplicates cost anything after the work has been authored? In an era, The Information Age, where data duplications are in essentially infinite supply economics states that: Despite the cost of creating, price shall tend towards zero.
Get people to pay for the act of creating, not duplicating -- Otherwise an infinite supply of copies destroys your ability to monetize. It is the act of creating that costs so much. The creators (even when mimicked) can't be duplicated. Copies are just advertising that increases demand for new works or improvements to existing works.
Humans want new creations, where there is demand there will be people meeting those demands. Thus, the fashion industry functions wonderfully with no copyright or patent protections, only trademarks...
there are legitimate reasons to keep certain pieces of information from the public.
No there are not. The problem is that you think secrets must exist in order for diplomacy to work. What if all those secret diplomatic meetings, and back-room deals were made public? Are you truly saying that it's necessary to express our political agenda publicly -- to the people --, but then to have lies, secrets and agendas that do not abide by the previously expressed stances?
It's people thinking like you that ensure we can never control our own governments. Additionally: Military secrets should be kept secret before they are carried out. A brief while after a military operation is performed, (IN PUBLIC), should it not be a matter of public record? Keeping the horrors of war from the people is EVIL. It allows heinous acts that none would condone to continue. How else can we judge whether we should further support a militaristic effort?
The fact that the common man has no idea what's really going on in the world and has no way of finding out is unacceptable -- We only have a vague sense that it's out of our control and there is widespread corruption afoot. How can we weigh our choices for leaders and representatives if we are prohibited from knowing how well or poorly they're doing their jobs.
If a not-so ethical deal must be made with a foreign official, then let it be known. If it was truly a necessary act the public will understand -- Provided that the relevant truths are known to us so that we may understand what necessitated the questionable act.
The truth is all or nothing. You can't share bits and pieces of truthy and keep the majority secret, then hope the people of the world to understand your actions -- They will be frustrated by the lack of supporting truths and you will be frustrated by the lack of trust and cooperation. However, you also can not operate above the law if the people can hold you accountable for your actions.
You sir, and those like you, sicken me. You are enemies of the truth -- A truth the people actually can handle, if only it is consistently made fully public.
You're over thinking things. What if you were allowed to tick a checkbox in your browser, and thereafter it would state clearly in every HTTP request header DO NOT TRACK ME. This enables notification that we do not want any tracking to be performed, and is delivered in the same set of headers that they are already parsing to read the "Cookies" they set.
It looks like this:
DNT: 1
Firefox4 and IE9 Support this, last I heard Chrome didn't (I hear there is a 3rd party plugin now). All those advertising bastards need do is not track people with those settings. Additionally, use a plugin like CookieMonster to manage your cookie settings.
Them: "Without cookies how will we know if you want to opt out?!"
Us: "Problem Solved. Read the DNT header fool."
Them: "We need cookies to makes sure people aren't fraudulently clicking ads, and to count clicks"
Us: "Not our problem; Besides, Cookies can be cleared -- Store your clicks & hits in YOUR OWN damn database!"
Them: "... [under breath] But we don't have to, and we won't comply sanely without mandatory regulation."
They'll cry us a river when it comes down to strict regulations -- The only bad thing is that the law writers don't understand technology enough to just say: "Advertisers must honor the 'DNT: 1' (do not track header) as if the user had followed the advertiser's opt-out procedure, and [insert other shit they should do like delete user records and not set cookies -- though I can manage my own damn cookies, but thanks]."
Stranded with only a hatchet, a pan, some fishing gear, a warm coat & "snow pants" I soon realized I needed shelter to survive the -40 degree nights so I built a suitable shelter in the lee of a tree. After nearly being caught in a storm too far from shelter, I stayed until Spring.
Being totally disconnected from everyone and all electronics (they froze, and died) while surviving off the land (ice fishing at night, collecting firewood and sleeping during the day) for three solid months changed my perspective about what's really important. I spent a lot of time thinking while "camping" under the cold clear sky -- Shooting stars can be seen at least once every two hours, you can see our satellites orbiting with the naked eye, and the Aurora Borealis can appear in a myriad of shapes and colors, once as if the whole sky was a giant red wagon wheel.
Our temperately stable planet is so beautiful yet insignificant -- The whole thing could disappear and the universe wouldn't notice at all, only our solar system might, a bit. The only real thing that matters now is getting off this rock so all our eggs aren't in one basket... We're so self important, petty and insignificant, but it's technology and sharing of knowledge that can make us great, if we put aside not-so-different differences we may even be able to survive the heat-death of the universe by creating our own stars.
Perhaps it was more of an "anti-geek camp", but I'm truly more driven, easy-going and appreciative of all the amazing technology I have... I now walk away from wastes of time, enjoy in camaraderie, collaboration and contributing to software projects, and think of benefits and consequences in terms far beyond my own life-span. It was a true "thinking man's" experience, to say the least.
Ok... so, tell me why this less secure distro is worth wasting anyone's time over considering that my writable USB gets updates as soon as they're released to my distro, sans burning / installing a new ISO... Booting from a clean USB every so often? Hmm, yeah, I can do that too.
Let's not forget -- If you put the end users in charge of their own security, they won't have any. Seriously, once I talked to a guy who figured out how to bypass the "your password has expired, choose a new password" security feature. Keep the same password by changing it 5 times in a row to exhaust the previously-used password buffer.
You seriously think they'll take the time to ensure they have the latest version of their distro burned -- Well, unless it's someone else's job (say, the PROGRAM itself) to keep the users up to date, it won't happen.
If it's not updating itself, it's not worth my time, honestly.
As others have noted, there's nothing to see here, it isn't any more secure than any other distro. If you're already mindful of security this distro isn't going to help you be any more secure.
Oh shit! How did I miss this gem here?
LPS differs from traditional operating systems in that it isn't continually patched.
BRILLIANT! That means that any flaws in your OS or applications (web browser) WON'T BE PATCHED -- Get a clue people, this is not made to be more secure, this is just plain asinine. I'm afraid to discover any other steps they've taken to "improve security" or "harden" the systems -- LMAO!