Yes, but the difference with lead exposure is that there's a well established, causal relationship between lead exposure (especially as a child) and neurological and behavioral changes.
Now, I'm not a neurologist, but I'm pretty sure that you can't say the same thing for "Reduction in the use of slide rules, Increase in CPU Speed, or Global warming".
So, it's not just causation here. It's a known physical process (lead poisoning and it's neurological effects) combined with correlational statistical data that says "we need to look into this!"
I think you're probably going overboard on your point-of-view: Sure, it's fine to say that correlation != causation, but it does however, suggests or implies causation. Correlation doesn't _answer_ any questions in any meaningful sense, it merely says "there might be something to this!". It's too bad that far too often stories are presented in the media as if correlation = causation, but that doesn't mean that correlation studies have _no_ value.
I read an article not too long ago about a guy who developed a brain tumor. By all accounts, he had normal sexual drives/impulses 'til then. As the tumor developed, he developed pedophile-type sexual urges/desires.
After the tumor was removed, he no longer reported any sort of pedophilia-type desires.
Just something to keep in mind for those of us (like myself, btw) who tend to come down on the side of free-will rather than determinism, that maybe we don't have all the answers yet, eh? Let's face it, our understanding of the brain isn't even as advanced as pre-Newton physics. So on what basis can any of us say who's to "blame" for criminality?
Also, don't you think "junk science" is a bit harsh? Unless you know something about the person's political beliefs/potential bias that was absent from the article? The link between lead exposure and behavioral changes and neurological effects isn't exactly earth-shattering original research either. While this correlation-type study hardly constitutes proof, I hardly think it's up there with the global-warming-deniers or intelligent design Christians, is it?
Unless you use the pejorative "junk science" to describe things that you don't already agree with or something.
OK, you're right, to read/. you get the impression "the only people that buy and use modchips are little old ladies that have piles of legally purchased pristine discs locked away, and bring out copies for their rowdy grandchildren to play with on weekends.", but that doesn't mean you're not within your rights to backup.
What we're seeing here, and the reason many/.ers are so zealous, is a steady erosion of the rights of consumers in the interest of protecting copyright holders from a dubious threat. And many people feel that there are powerful monied interests in our society that see the scenario described in Stallman's "Right to Read" as their eventual end goal.
The actions of pirates/infringers is only worth worrying about if you accept the copyright holders' ludicrous assertion that every incident of copyright infringement = 1 lost sale. The thing that companies have trouble accepting is that there's some people who will use your product if they can get it free, but are STILL UNWILLING TO PAY $$ for it!
Commercial operations in China/former soviet characters that are cranking out hundreds or thousands of disks, and selling them? Throw the book at them. Those are the people copyright law was designed to stop.
But non-commercial copyright infringement? Who cares? When I was poor, living hand to mouth, and I pirated games from whatever source, but if pirating had been made non-feasible by whatever means (technical or legal) that wouldn't have made me magically be able to afford all the games I was pirating. It just would've meant I would've spent more time reading or something. Which would've got me less in the habit of playing and enjoying video games in general.
If a small number of individuals can't afford games, and pirate, the best thing to do is let em run free. When those people can afford it, the vast majority of them will just buy the games.
"First off, I am not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. I think it is caused by solar activity, which should be proven correct or not in the next decade if the predictions of less solar activity comes true."
Um, OK, and you did your Phd work in meteorology/climate science where?
I don't mean to make an "appeal to authority" type argument, but Jesus, what are you basing that on? Just because 99% of scientific community thinks you're wrong, that doesn't make you Galileo. You have to be right, as well.
Never mind that, even if we concede that fossil fuel burning has zero effect on global warming (which I don't, but let's do a little suspension of disbelief for the sake of the argument) isn't peak oil a concern?
Even if the peak oil people are partly right, then we still need to get a large supply of _renewable_ energy to replace a worldwide consumption of what, 187 million barrels of oil a day? That means building a nuclear plant in every city with a population > 100,000 like, yesterday.
Expensive? Sure. But it won't be any cheaper if we start in 50 years when oil's at $200/barrel in 2007 dollars...
"It is a common fallacy that the primary goal of trusted computing is to enable DRM so the movie studios/RIAA controls your computer."
Yeah, just like how it's a common fallacy that the primary goal of scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project was to incinerate civilians. They were just working on a way to make a bomb from nuclear reactions. That could be used for a variety of purposes, like major earthmoving (actually proposed by Teller, BTW), or it could be used to attack cities.
Seriously, all sarcasm aside, that's a pretty narrow reading of how new technologies develop, and their effects. And, in fact, it probably wasn't foreseeable to most people that the primary (really, only,) use of nukes would be to incinerate cities. But that in fact did happen.
So let's not pretend technology is neutral, OK? It is in a sense, but 'once you invent a hammer, everything starts to look a lot like a nail'. The tech you have available shapes your perceptions and range of options.
This is a tech that has some pretty orwellian potential uses. Let's not kid ourselves about what it's most likely to be used for. Prevent piracy, crack down on whistleblowers, and the ability of employers and/or governments to issue secret orders, in writing.
Y'know, people keep talking about document control, like it's a good thing.
Well, how about this other side of this sword, like when your boss gives you an order, via e-mail, to do something that is unethical, illegal, or immoral.
You think you've covered your ass, because you've got this order in writing. But it deletes itself after X amount of time, and anyway, it isn't readable on any computer not designated by the author/creator.
What about whistleblowing? Doesn't this make it a lot harder to take, say, a document written by a government official, and leak it to the media?
People keep talking about 'document control' in the context of things like when hackers break in and steal people's credit cards or health records or something.
This technology, even the most benign aspect of it (doc control) has the power to make secrecy a lot easier to execute.
I'm not sure that is in any way a good thing for a democracy.
You sound like maybe somebody who's working on this, or at least someone who's well informed, so maybe you can clear something up for me?
The EFF has an extensive description of concepts like remote attestation, but, when you say "Virus-infected software can't claim to be clean. Hacked software can't claim to be the original", how exactly is this accomplished?
Wouldn't that require you to 'trust' some other authority that they have remotely verified that, for example, your software is virus free?
Couldn't that communication be spoofed?
Secondly, a lot of the discussion on the EFF page suggests that this would be a reasonable tech if you gave 'the keys' to the owner (not necessarily the USER). But if you give the keys to the owner, doesn't that basically take away most of the benefits?
Look, let's not get too hung up on rose-tinted glasses here. There's 2 big aspects of 'trusted computing': 1) Remote attestation 2) Memory curtaining
Yes, TC has some good potential benefits, but if and only if YOU GIVE THE USERS THE KEYS!
And if 'the keys' are given to the owner, you can't stop spam/cheating/etc. You can't stop spammers and online games cheaters unless you treat the owner like the enemy.
Microsoft, for example, sees trusted computing as a way to make China pay for software. They have absolutely no interest in giving the owner 'the keys'.
You want a real-world example of trusted computing, in a half-assed way? It's your cell phone. What is it used for? Screwing the customer, for example, my phone has ringtone capability, but I can't use an mp3 from it's mp3 player as ringtone unless I paid 4 bucks from it to download it from my cell phone provider.
Don't drink the kool-aid. There is no reasonable way to implement Trusted Computing.
The overall tone of their whole site seems to be an assumption that the best thing you can use the legal system for is to silence dissent and/or criticism.
Hardly surprising that these wankers aren't on the side of the angels, eh?
Yeah, they'd rather you pay for Windows, but barring that, they'd rather you pirate it than switch to linux.
The reason MS 'worries about people who aren't their customers' is they see anybody who owns an x86 computer as their customer, and they've always been more concerned about control/market penetration than anything else.
That's a very good observation... Think about the trouble non-technical end users have just moving from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Whenever your *ahem* "less gifted" end users have a choice, they stick with what they know, because really, who the fuck wants to use a new user interface?
That said, I don't have any idea what the solution to this is... This is really a subset of a more fundamental problem with human-computer interaction.
Oh, and to all those people complaining about downloaders? Look at it like this - those people weren't going to be customers anyway, so it's no lost revenue. I remember making this argument back when I was a poor student, (96 or so) and we had pirated cable tv (it was there when we moved in). I remember making the argument that I don't like having cable enough to pay for it, so if pirating were 100% impossible, I'd just live without it and read more or something.
That's the fundamental problem with all of this sort of discussion - the assumption on the part of copyright owners that just because I like something well enough to read/listen to/watch it, I like it enough to pay for it.
Some people don't, and wouldn't have been customers in the first place. So why worry about what people who aren't your customers are doing?
This assumption that every copyright violation = 1 lost sale is weapons-grade bullonium.
Never mind St. Phillip K., in either "Idoru" or "Virtual Light", this was how Barry Rydell got fired from IntelSecure... Bunch of hackers set up a phony emergency call to private security covering a gated community.
Of course, in contrast with this story, when the cops showed up in Gibson's book, the lady of the house was entertaining her gardener in private, wearing only some leather and a pair of nickel-plated Smith and Wesson handcuffs...
Yeah, and if you take a look at terrorist casualties (on US soil) since Jan 1 2002, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that exactly zero?
Maybe I've been watching too much '24', but if terrorists were in the US, and wanted to attack, why not say, do a 'columbine-style' attack on several malls in several cities, on the thanksgiving long weekend, only with 5-6 guys who know how to fire a rifle and some _real_ explosives that work?
This is just an example of what a low-tech plan with a budget in the 5 figure range could do.
Leads me to my theory that there have been no terrorist attacks because the US is currently doing exactly what the terrorists want, at least in Iraq, so why would they bother attacking?
The sad thing about this theory is, the most likely time for a terrorist group to attack the US is if (when?) the US starts talking seriously about withdrawing from Iraq.
If this sort of thing is so good at screening out 'bad people' or 'terrorist attackers', where are all the genuine terrorists they've caught?
Surely to god if they caught someone, they'd shout it from the rooftops. The fact that NO ONE has been announced suggests that NO ONE has been caught.
Never mind the fact that this type of 'pre-screening' measure only works if you assume that the average garden-variety terrorist isn't smart enough to come up with a fake ID.
When I was in high school, some friends of mine and I figured out a way to get "genuine" government-issued with a hologram and everything, fake IDs. Basically you start with a phony birth certificate, then take the driver's license learner's test with it.
Surely to god we ought to assume that terrorists planning attacks (if they actually exist - currently the US is doing EXACTLY what Al Queda wants them to do in Iraq, so why bother attacking the US?) are at least as smart as I was at age 16?
You're absolutely right, that the US government is asking for passenger lists including D.O.B., address, and phone numbers for any flights flying over US air space.
So, if I'm on a flight from Vancouver to Cancun or (gasp!) Havana, (you guys south of us should really try vacationing in Cuba, it's dirt cheap, and you can drink the water, so I'm told...) the US wants to know about it.
Or, in other words, they want to be able to extend their ridiculous no-fly list to include people who don't live in the US, and who don't plan on setting foot on American soil, flying on Airlines that might not even do business to the US.
The fundamentally ridiculous part of this "data mining to catch terrorists" is the idea that, OK, we're looking for a needle in a haystack. So, if we make the haystack bigger, then somehow the needles we're looking for will magically appear.
Never mind that the false positive rate is going to be several orders of magnitude greater than the actual incidence rate of "being a terrorist" or "planning a terrorist attack on the US".
So this only sounds like a good idea to those people who don't care about arresting/detaining/harassing innocent people.
I hate to make a 'slippery slope' argument, but one of the hallmarks of a police state is keeping a file on your citizens, even if they're not suspects in a criminal matter.
"So I shouldn't bother with the florescent lights or turning down the thermostat if I can afford it? Or does that personal exemption only apply to Al?
I thought the point was we all have to do our part."
Well, as much as that makes for a "bon mot", it doesn't make for much of an argument.
No, it's not that you shouldn't bother, or that Gore gets an exemption, (although I've read some allegations that Gore has since cleaned up his act by installing solar panels and buying from more-expensive-but-cleaner sources of electricity, like wind power. No idea if that's true, just food for thought...) it's that even if Gore lives in a 20,000 square foot mansion, and commutes to work by helicopter, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to things like coal fired power plants. The actions of one person compared to the actions of millions are just not that significant.
So given those of us who would like to agitate for change have finite time and other resources, should we concern ourselves with Al Gore's house or are there bigger fish to fry?
The only reason Al Gore's house is worth mentioning is if you accept the premise (very common these days, even though it's grade A bullshit) that one can only speak out on a particular issue if your own personal life is in some sort of 'state of grace' regarding the issue in question.
Which, incidentally, is a great way to silence debate and preserve the status quo.
Developing countries like China and India haven't had an enormous bonfire of fossil fuels over the last two centuries. It's the developed world that did that. So the current increase in CO2 is not the fault of china or india, it's the 'fault' of the west.
And please, can we stop pretending that what we do with our individual homes is the problem? The problem is transportation and industry, especially manufacturing. Talking about Gore's home is like standing in a burning building and blowing out a candle.
Were are the FACTS when it comes to wikipedia
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Has Wikipedia Peaked?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
OK, I'm a big fan of wikipedia, though I've never edited it. So I've been concerned with a lot of the stuff I hear about allegations of clique-ish behavior, and abuse of power, and the like on the part of cliques or cabals of admins.
I've read a lot on David Brandt's wikipedia watch, looked at wikitruth.info, and just spend the last half-hour or so skimming through Parker Peters' LJ, and here's the thing: I notice a lot of broad generalizations, a lot of references or links to stuff that seems like very, very, ambiguous information, and a shortage of facts. What I'm consistently looking for, and not finding, is a timeline of point-by-point, "just the facts, Ma'am" type of description of bad behavior on the part of wikipedians.
For example, on Parkerpeters.livejournal.com, we have this:
"Lie #1: "It's the message, not the messenger." This is often quoted by administrators claiming they are "fair" on a given topic.
Unfortunately, the opposite is shown by the evidence at hand. If the message was to be dealt with fairly, administrators would not be in such a rush to hunt down "suspected sockpuppets" constantly, vandalizing user pages and terrorizing new users while claiming they are "sockpuppets" of some long-lost grudge."
Um, why the vague generalizations? If it is in fact the case that people are being targeted for unpopular messages or unpopular points of views, why not cite specific cases of "I suspect that editor X disagreed with my point of view on topic Y (George Bush, climate change, the validity of postmodern literary criticism) and that lead to A, B, and C bad behaviors, which I suspect is why I'm banned"?
Am I missing something, or am I seeing the tail end of a personality conflict that some people are trying to confuse with inherent flaws with Wikipedia?
OK, maybe I've been watching too much CSI these days, but I wonder how this would affect DNA forensics? If a blood sample gives DNA that is identical to my brother or uncle or whatever, and my skin gives "my" DNA, how would the courts handle that?
It certainly demonstrates a case where DNA evidence does not, in fact, always point to the perpetrator.
Let's remember, that there were at least three competing philosophies/schools of thought on the purpose of universal compulsory education.
First, there's the "Jeffersonian" idea that a well educated citizenry is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.
Then there's the school of thought that feels education should be quite deliberately used for social control, that is, to keep the masses in line.
And then there's the idea that schools ought to produce people with marketable job skills that will keep them employed.
The problem is, these are kind of in opposition to each other. The 2nd and 3rd ones might work well together, but they're diametrically opposed to the Jeffersonian ideal. I mean, which is it? Either you want happy obedient worker-bees or you want critical thinkers who will challenge the status quo.
So, if education policy seems to be direction-less, it's because there is no clear consensus on the purpose of compulsory public education.
Although having watched "marketplace" since I was a kid, I'd like to suppose that this wasn't deliberate, just more a reflection of the fact that journalism students don't know the difference between RAM and a CPU.
The show's producers were likely operating under the mistaken assumption that the fault they had generated was simple to fix AND simple to diagnose, when in fact they'd given them a reasonably tough hardware problems to diagnose.
Notice that at no point did they get into the question of "how would your 'honest geeks' go about diagnosing this problem?"
Well, of course, you're basically right. Speaking as a private pilot, I fully concede that the pilot is 100% ultimately responsible for the safety and operation of the aircraft.
But to continue the landing gear example, imagine aircraft A has the controls for the gear in a highly visible place, and has a warning light such that if you're below 500' altitude and the gear is up, a warning light lights up right in your field of vision.
Aircraft B has a gear control that is under the seat, the pilot can reach it fine, but it's not in his field of vision, and the only way to tell if the gear is up or down is buy looking out the window.
Yes, of course, I believe it should still be the pilot's responsibility in both cases, but I think we can all agree that aircraft A will have less gear-up landings than aircraft B.
I guess to back off from my original point a bit, the way stuff is designed can have a real impact on what mistakes users make. I don't want to sound like this is a case of laying blame, but just that good design can minimize user errors.
(Also, given that pilots are highly trained and always stick to things like checklists, they're probably not a good analogy for computer users...)
Re:business and government are run by aliens?
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GAO Report Slams FCC
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· Score: 1, Insightful
OK, but when most people say "lobbyists", what they're actually talking about is a system by which we have basically institutionalized corruption, in that those with more financial resources have better access to lawmakers.
Furthermore, I'd like to come down on the side rejecting categorically the notion that _everything_ is interest based.
Yes, most of us have interests, economic or otherwise. But can there be no space, in government, for someone to take the dis-interested point of view, that is, to be concerned with the common good?
Let me pose this question for you: Where does legitimacy of government come from? Does it come from groups, or from citizens? If the basis of legitimacy is through groups and group membership, that's not democracy.
Yes, it's reasonable for citizens to assemble into groups and suggest this or that policy direction to lawmakers, but let's not pretend that that's all that's going on with professional paid lobbyists. Corruption has become routine, not exceptional.
This nicely illustrates a common problem these days - that it seems to be difficult to make illegal that which is unethical.
In WWII, they had frequent aircraft crashes caused by pilots landing with the gear up.
They consistently attributed these accidents to "pilot error".
Then somebody took a look at the design of the cockpit, and realized that it wasn't designed in a way that would make it immediately obvious to a pilot whether or not the gear was up or down. When the cockpit was re-designed, the high rate of 'gear up' landings evaporated.
In other words, the designers were blaming the users for a design flaw. Happens all the time in the software industry these days.
I'm not saying that PEBKAC errors don't happen, or that idiots don't do stupid things. But I suspect that a large slice of the cases we classify as "user error" should really be called design error.
Having worked for a polling and market research company, much of the polling questions isn't that different from how you get people to say ridiculous things on "Talking to Americans".
The classic example is, if you ask people do you support capital punishment gives much different numbers than asking "do you support the Death Penalty?".
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but the difference with lead exposure is that there's a well established, causal relationship between lead exposure (especially as a child) and neurological and behavioral changes.
Now, I'm not a neurologist, but I'm pretty sure that you can't say the same thing for "Reduction in the use of slide rules, Increase in CPU Speed, or Global warming".
So, it's not just causation here. It's a known physical process (lead poisoning and it's neurological effects) combined with correlational statistical data that says "we need to look into this!"
I think you're probably going overboard on your point-of-view: Sure, it's fine to say that correlation != causation, but it does however, suggests or implies causation. Correlation doesn't _answer_ any questions in any meaningful sense, it merely says "there might be something to this!". It's too bad that far too often stories are presented in the media as if correlation = causation, but that doesn't mean that correlation studies have _no_ value.
I read an article not too long ago about a guy who developed a brain tumor. By all accounts, he had normal sexual drives/impulses 'til then. As the tumor developed, he developed pedophile-type sexual urges/desires.
After the tumor was removed, he no longer reported any sort of pedophilia-type desires.
Just something to keep in mind for those of us (like myself, btw) who tend to come down on the side of free-will rather than determinism, that maybe we don't have all the answers yet, eh? Let's face it, our understanding of the brain isn't even as advanced as pre-Newton physics. So on what basis can any of us say who's to "blame" for criminality?
Also, don't you think "junk science" is a bit harsh? Unless you know something about the person's political beliefs/potential bias that was absent from the article? The link between lead exposure and behavioral changes and neurological effects isn't exactly earth-shattering original research either. While this correlation-type study hardly constitutes proof, I hardly think it's up there with the global-warming-deniers or intelligent design Christians, is it?
Unless you use the pejorative "junk science" to describe things that you don't already agree with or something.
That' not the point.
/. you get the impression "the only people that buy and use modchips are little old ladies that have piles of legally purchased pristine discs locked away, and bring out copies for their rowdy grandchildren to play with on weekends.", but that doesn't mean you're not within your rights to backup.
/.ers are so zealous, is a steady erosion of the rights of consumers in the interest of protecting copyright holders from a dubious threat. And many people feel that there are powerful monied interests in our society that see the scenario described in Stallman's "Right to Read" as their eventual end goal.
OK, you're right, to read
What we're seeing here, and the reason many
The actions of pirates/infringers is only worth worrying about if you accept the copyright holders' ludicrous assertion that every incident of copyright infringement = 1 lost sale. The thing that companies have trouble accepting is that there's some people who will use your product if they can get it free, but are STILL UNWILLING TO PAY $$ for it!
Commercial operations in China/former soviet characters that are cranking out hundreds or thousands of disks, and selling them? Throw the book at them. Those are the people copyright law was designed to stop.
But non-commercial copyright infringement? Who cares? When I was poor, living hand to mouth, and I pirated games from whatever source, but if pirating had been made non-feasible by whatever means (technical or legal) that wouldn't have made me magically be able to afford all the games I was pirating. It just would've meant I would've spent more time reading or something. Which would've got me less in the habit of playing and enjoying video games in general.
If a small number of individuals can't afford games, and pirate, the best thing to do is let em run free. When those people can afford it, the vast majority of them will just buy the games.
"First off, I am not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. I think it is caused by solar activity, which should be proven correct or not in the next decade if the predictions of less solar activity comes true."
Um, OK, and you did your Phd work in meteorology/climate science where?
I don't mean to make an "appeal to authority" type argument, but Jesus, what are you basing that on? Just because 99% of scientific community thinks you're wrong, that doesn't make you Galileo. You have to be right, as well.
Never mind that, even if we concede that fossil fuel burning has zero effect on global warming (which I don't, but let's do a little suspension of disbelief for the sake of the argument) isn't peak oil a concern?
Even if the peak oil people are partly right, then we still need to get a large supply of _renewable_ energy to replace a worldwide consumption of what, 187 million barrels of oil a day? That means building a nuclear plant in every city with a population > 100,000 like, yesterday.
Expensive? Sure. But it won't be any cheaper if we start in 50 years when oil's at $200/barrel in 2007 dollars...
"It is a common fallacy that the primary goal of trusted computing is to enable DRM so the movie studios/RIAA controls your computer."
Yeah, just like how it's a common fallacy that the primary goal of scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project was to incinerate civilians. They were just working on a way to make a bomb from nuclear reactions. That could be used for a variety of purposes, like major earthmoving (actually proposed by Teller, BTW), or it could be used to attack cities.
Seriously, all sarcasm aside, that's a pretty narrow reading of how new technologies develop, and their effects. And, in fact, it probably wasn't foreseeable to most people that the primary (really, only,) use of nukes would be to incinerate cities. But that in fact did happen.
So let's not pretend technology is neutral, OK? It is in a sense, but 'once you invent a hammer, everything starts to look a lot like a nail'. The tech you have available shapes your perceptions and range of options.
This is a tech that has some pretty orwellian potential uses. Let's not kid ourselves about what it's most likely to be used for. Prevent piracy, crack down on whistleblowers, and the ability of employers and/or governments to issue secret orders, in writing.
Y'know, people keep talking about document control, like it's a good thing.
Well, how about this other side of this sword, like when your boss gives you an order, via e-mail, to do something that is unethical, illegal, or immoral.
You think you've covered your ass, because you've got this order in writing. But it deletes itself after X amount of time, and anyway, it isn't readable on any computer not designated by the author/creator.
What about whistleblowing? Doesn't this make it a lot harder to take, say, a document written by a government official, and leak it to the media?
People keep talking about 'document control' in the context of things like when hackers break in and steal people's credit cards or health records or something.
This technology, even the most benign aspect of it (doc control) has the power to make secrecy a lot easier to execute.
I'm not sure that is in any way a good thing for a democracy.
You sound like maybe somebody who's working on this, or at least someone who's well informed, so maybe you can clear something up for me?
The EFF has an extensive description of concepts like remote attestation, but, when you say "Virus-infected software can't claim to be clean. Hacked software can't claim to be the original", how exactly is this accomplished?
Wouldn't that require you to 'trust' some other authority that they have remotely verified that, for example, your software is virus free?
Couldn't that communication be spoofed?
Secondly, a lot of the discussion on the EFF page suggests that this would be a reasonable tech if you gave 'the keys' to the owner (not necessarily the USER). But if you give the keys to the owner, doesn't that basically take away most of the benefits?
Look, let's not get too hung up on rose-tinted glasses here. There's 2 big aspects of 'trusted computing':
1) Remote attestation
2) Memory curtaining
Yes, TC has some good potential benefits, but if and only if YOU GIVE THE USERS THE KEYS!
And if 'the keys' are given to the owner, you can't stop spam/cheating/etc. You can't stop spammers and online games cheaters unless you treat the owner like the enemy.
Microsoft, for example, sees trusted computing as a way to make China pay for software. They have absolutely no interest in giving the owner 'the keys'.
You want a real-world example of trusted computing, in a half-assed way? It's your cell phone. What is it used for? Screwing the customer, for example, my phone has ringtone capability, but I can't use an mp3 from it's mp3 player as ringtone unless I paid 4 bucks from it to download it from my cell phone provider.
Don't drink the kool-aid. There is no reasonable way to implement Trusted Computing.
Take a look at this page:
http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/scofflaw-bloggers
The overall tone of their whole site seems to be an assumption that the best thing you can use the legal system for is to silence dissent and/or criticism.
Hardly surprising that these wankers aren't on the side of the angels, eh?
Yeah, they'd rather you pay for Windows, but barring that, they'd rather you pirate it than switch to linux.
The reason MS 'worries about people who aren't their customers' is they see anybody who owns an x86 computer as their customer, and they've always been more concerned about control/market penetration than anything else.
That's a very good observation... Think about the trouble non-technical end users have just moving from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Whenever your *ahem* "less gifted" end users have a choice, they stick with what they know, because really, who the fuck wants to use a new user interface?
That said, I don't have any idea what the solution to this is... This is really a subset of a more fundamental problem with human-computer interaction.
Oh, and to all those people complaining about downloaders? Look at it like this - those people weren't going to be customers anyway, so it's no lost revenue. I remember making this argument back when I was a poor student, (96 or so) and we had pirated cable tv (it was there when we moved in). I remember making the argument that I don't like having cable enough to pay for it, so if pirating were 100% impossible, I'd just live without it and read more or something.
That's the fundamental problem with all of this sort of discussion - the assumption on the part of copyright owners that just because I like something well enough to read/listen to/watch it, I like it enough to pay for it.
Some people don't, and wouldn't have been customers in the first place. So why worry about what people who aren't your customers are doing?
This assumption that every copyright violation = 1 lost sale is weapons-grade bullonium.
Never mind St. Phillip K., in either "Idoru" or "Virtual Light", this was how Barry Rydell got fired from IntelSecure... Bunch of hackers set up a phony emergency call to private security covering a gated community.
Of course, in contrast with this story, when the cops showed up in Gibson's book, the lady of the house was entertaining her gardener in private, wearing only some leather and a pair of nickel-plated Smith and Wesson handcuffs...
Yeah, and if you take a look at terrorist casualties (on US soil) since Jan 1 2002, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that exactly zero?
Maybe I've been watching too much '24', but if terrorists were in the US, and wanted to attack, why not say, do a 'columbine-style' attack on several malls in several cities, on the thanksgiving long weekend, only with 5-6 guys who know how to fire a rifle and some _real_ explosives that work?
This is just an example of what a low-tech plan with a budget in the 5 figure range could do.
Leads me to my theory that there have been no terrorist attacks because the US is currently doing exactly what the terrorists want, at least in Iraq, so why would they bother attacking?
The sad thing about this theory is, the most likely time for a terrorist group to attack the US is if (when?) the US starts talking seriously about withdrawing from Iraq.
Here, here.
If this sort of thing is so good at screening out 'bad people' or 'terrorist attackers', where are all the genuine terrorists they've caught?
Surely to god if they caught someone, they'd shout it from the rooftops. The fact that NO ONE has been announced suggests that NO ONE has been caught.
Never mind the fact that this type of 'pre-screening' measure only works if you assume that the average garden-variety terrorist isn't smart enough to come up with a fake ID.
When I was in high school, some friends of mine and I figured out a way to get "genuine" government-issued with a hologram and everything, fake IDs. Basically you start with a phony birth certificate, then take the driver's license learner's test with it.
Surely to god we ought to assume that terrorists planning attacks (if they actually exist - currently the US is doing EXACTLY what Al Queda wants them to do in Iraq, so why bother attacking the US?) are at least as smart as I was at age 16?
You're absolutely right, that the US government is asking for passenger lists including D.O.B., address, and phone numbers for any flights flying over US air space.
So, if I'm on a flight from Vancouver to Cancun or (gasp!) Havana, (you guys south of us should really try vacationing in Cuba, it's dirt cheap, and you can drink the water, so I'm told...) the US wants to know about it.
Or, in other words, they want to be able to extend their ridiculous no-fly list to include people who don't live in the US, and who don't plan on setting foot on American soil, flying on Airlines that might not even do business to the US.
The fundamentally ridiculous part of this "data mining to catch terrorists" is the idea that, OK, we're looking for a needle in a haystack. So, if we make the haystack bigger, then somehow the needles we're looking for will magically appear.
Never mind that the false positive rate is going to be several orders of magnitude greater than the actual incidence rate of "being a terrorist" or "planning a terrorist attack on the US".
So this only sounds like a good idea to those people who don't care about arresting/detaining/harassing innocent people.
I hate to make a 'slippery slope' argument, but one of the hallmarks of a police state is keeping a file on your citizens, even if they're not suspects in a criminal matter.
"So I shouldn't bother with the florescent lights or turning down the thermostat if I can afford it? Or does that personal exemption only apply to Al?
I thought the point was we all have to do our part."
Well, as much as that makes for a "bon mot", it doesn't make for much of an argument.
No, it's not that you shouldn't bother, or that Gore gets an exemption, (although I've read some allegations that Gore has since cleaned up his act by installing solar panels and buying from more-expensive-but-cleaner sources of electricity, like wind power. No idea if that's true, just food for thought...) it's that even if Gore lives in a 20,000 square foot mansion, and commutes to work by helicopter, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to things like coal fired power plants. The actions of one person compared to the actions of millions are just not that significant.
So given those of us who would like to agitate for change have finite time and other resources, should we concern ourselves with Al Gore's house or are there bigger fish to fry?
The only reason Al Gore's house is worth mentioning is if you accept the premise (very common these days, even though it's grade A bullshit) that one can only speak out on a particular issue if your own personal life is in some sort of 'state of grace' regarding the issue in question.
Which, incidentally, is a great way to silence debate and preserve the status quo.
"it" being the problem.
Developing countries like China and India haven't had an enormous bonfire of fossil fuels over the last two centuries. It's the developed world that did that. So the current increase in CO2 is not the fault of china or india, it's the 'fault' of the west.
And please, can we stop pretending that what we do with our individual homes is the problem? The problem is transportation and industry, especially manufacturing. Talking about Gore's home is like standing in a burning building and blowing out a candle.
OK, I'm a big fan of wikipedia, though I've never edited it. So I've been concerned with a lot of the stuff I hear about allegations of clique-ish behavior, and abuse of power, and the like on the part of cliques or cabals of admins.
I've read a lot on David Brandt's wikipedia watch, looked at wikitruth.info, and just spend the last half-hour or so skimming through Parker Peters' LJ, and here's the thing: I notice a lot of broad generalizations, a lot of references or links to stuff that seems like very, very, ambiguous information, and a shortage of facts. What I'm consistently looking for, and not finding, is a timeline of point-by-point, "just the facts, Ma'am" type of description of bad behavior on the part of wikipedians.
For example, on Parkerpeters.livejournal.com, we have this:
"Lie #1: "It's the message, not the messenger."
This is often quoted by administrators claiming they are "fair" on a given topic.
Unfortunately, the opposite is shown by the evidence at hand. If the message was to be dealt with fairly, administrators would not be in such a rush to hunt down "suspected sockpuppets" constantly, vandalizing user pages and terrorizing new users while claiming they are "sockpuppets" of some long-lost grudge."
Um, why the vague generalizations? If it is in fact the case that people are being targeted for unpopular messages or unpopular points of views, why not cite specific cases of "I suspect that editor X disagreed with my point of view on topic Y (George Bush, climate change, the validity of postmodern literary criticism) and that lead to A, B, and C bad behaviors, which I suspect is why I'm banned"?
Am I missing something, or am I seeing the tail end of a personality conflict that some people are trying to confuse with inherent flaws with Wikipedia?
OK, maybe I've been watching too much CSI these days, but I wonder how this would affect DNA forensics? If a blood sample gives DNA that is identical to my brother or uncle or whatever, and my skin gives "my" DNA, how would the courts handle that?
It certainly demonstrates a case where DNA evidence does not, in fact, always point to the perpetrator.
Are, um, checkered, to say the least...
Let's remember, that there were at least three competing philosophies/schools of thought on the purpose of universal compulsory education.
First, there's the "Jeffersonian" idea that a well educated citizenry is essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.
Then there's the school of thought that feels education should be quite deliberately used for social control, that is, to keep the masses in line.
And then there's the idea that schools ought to produce people with marketable job skills that will keep them employed.
The problem is, these are kind of in opposition to each other. The 2nd and 3rd ones might work well together, but they're diametrically opposed to the Jeffersonian ideal. I mean, which is it? Either you want happy obedient worker-bees or you want critical thinkers who will challenge the status quo.
So, if education policy seems to be direction-less, it's because there is no clear consensus on the purpose of compulsory public education.
Here, here.
Although having watched "marketplace" since I was a kid, I'd like to suppose that this wasn't deliberate, just more a reflection of the fact that journalism students don't know the difference between RAM and a CPU.
The show's producers were likely operating under the mistaken assumption that the fault they had generated was simple to fix AND simple to diagnose, when in fact they'd given them a reasonably tough hardware problems to diagnose.
Notice that at no point did they get into the question of "how would your 'honest geeks' go about diagnosing this problem?"
Well, of course, you're basically right. Speaking as a private pilot, I fully concede that the pilot is 100% ultimately responsible for the safety and operation of the aircraft.
But to continue the landing gear example, imagine aircraft A has the controls for the gear in a highly visible place, and has a warning light such that if you're below 500' altitude and the gear is up, a warning light lights up right in your field of vision.
Aircraft B has a gear control that is under the seat, the pilot can reach it fine, but it's not in his field of vision, and the only way to tell if the gear is up or down is buy looking out the window.
Yes, of course, I believe it should still be the pilot's responsibility in both cases, but I think we can all agree that aircraft A will have less gear-up landings than aircraft B.
I guess to back off from my original point a bit, the way stuff is designed can have a real impact on what mistakes users make. I don't want to sound like this is a case of laying blame, but just that good design can minimize user errors.
(Also, given that pilots are highly trained and always stick to things like checklists, they're probably not a good analogy for computer users...)
OK, but when most people say "lobbyists", what they're actually talking about is a system by which we have basically institutionalized corruption, in that those with more financial resources have better access to lawmakers.
Furthermore, I'd like to come down on the side rejecting categorically the notion that _everything_ is interest based.
Yes, most of us have interests, economic or otherwise. But can there be no space, in government, for someone to take the dis-interested point of view, that is, to be concerned with the common good?
Let me pose this question for you: Where does legitimacy of government come from? Does it come from groups, or from citizens? If the basis of legitimacy is through groups and group membership, that's not democracy.
Yes, it's reasonable for citizens to assemble into groups and suggest this or that policy direction to lawmakers, but let's not pretend that that's all that's going on with professional paid lobbyists. Corruption has become routine, not exceptional.
This nicely illustrates a common problem these days - that it seems to be difficult to make illegal that which is unethical.
Here here.
In WWII, they had frequent aircraft crashes caused by pilots landing with the gear up.
They consistently attributed these accidents to "pilot error".
Then somebody took a look at the design of the cockpit, and realized that it wasn't designed in a way that would make it immediately obvious to a pilot whether or not the gear was up or down. When the cockpit was re-designed, the high rate of 'gear up' landings evaporated.
In other words, the designers were blaming the users for a design flaw. Happens all the time in the software industry these days.
I'm not saying that PEBKAC errors don't happen, or that idiots don't do stupid things. But I suspect that a large slice of the cases we classify as "user error" should really be called design error.
Here here.
Having worked for a polling and market research company, much of the polling questions isn't that different from how you get people to say ridiculous things on "Talking to Americans".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_To_Americans
The classic example is, if you ask people do you support capital punishment gives much different numbers than asking "do you support the Death Penalty?".