The problem is that personal information is just too valuable for companies not to get a hard-on over how much their advertiser customers will pay for it, and they push and trick and deceive and play all sorts of games with TOS so that people don't realize they're being fleeced.
So exploiting personal information becomes lucrative and profitable, and not much is sacred except the almighty dollar.
With everyone universally doing it, everyone that doesn't is put at a competitive disadvantage, so the good guys get squeezed out of the market because they won't pay the piper.
This, in turn, creates a climate where being exploited is normal, and socially it becomes unpopular to resist the onslaught of data greed. Already I've heard stories of employers refusing to hire people that don't have facebook profiles for them to snoop through. Being a principled person that stands his ground and refuses to play games with his personal information is getting to be more and more disadvantageous, and they are getting squeezed out of society by less scrupulous or caring people that don't make a fuss about whoring themselves out to the same companies that squeezed out the same principled companies that would have left their information alone.
In the world of business, the only rule is survival of the fittest.
Doubly so when even the referees, umpires, and rulebook publishers are for sale.
One may as well try to keep bees away from flowers, as protect their personal information from companies that have every incentive to obtain it using whatever tactics they see fit.
And one may as well be a farmer sitting on an oil strike, and not selling out. Sooner or later someone who wants that oil badly enough is going to lie, cheat, steal, trick, or even flat out use violence to get it by hook or crook.
The only defense to being robbed that truly works is to not have anything worth stealing.
Thing is that rich folks can take advantage of more loopholes and tax breaks than poor folks can.
It's not ironic at all, it's a disadvantaged group bitching about having to play on an uneven playing field, and rightly so. If the pot is calling the kettle black, it's a pretty damn bigger of a kettle than the pot is.
It doesn't help them either that the rich team has the referees on their own payroll (regulatory capture) and even has members on the rules committee getting their own pet regulations published in the rulebooks (lobbyists writing laws that politicians rubber stamp).
Which would be more damaging to the economy anyway?
Taxing poor people that have to fight and save to keep every hard earned penny, so that they spend even less than they would if they got to keep everything?
Or taxing rich people with shitloads of passive income that are more like money fountains than they are merely rich, and who, if their classwise subordinates got to keep and spend more of their own money, might even come out ahead if they got levied with taxes instead of their customers?
Remember, businesses run by rich people earn *their* money catering to customers spending their hard earned wages when they go shopping for goods and services.
Yes, government needs paid for, but that's simply all it is. A bill to the public for the service of civilization. And like it or not, the rich can afford to pay more in taxes, both raw dollars and in tax rates, than poor people can.
Not to mention that since rich people are rarer than poor people, you can probably pare down the size of the IRS while you're at it if you have fewer taxpayers to keep track of.
The argument that taxing the rich will disincentive innovation and enterpreneurhood only applies if joining the elite is made difficult. There shouldn't be a hard edge or bracket to cross. Use a smooth mathematical formula that makes the taxing process painless for the poor seeking to become rich.
Example:
Old broken method: Onerous regulations of businesses that exceed X number of employees, no appreciation for the strain of actually jumping over that hurdle.
New, smooth method: Realize that government regulation IS burdensome, so give businesses a tax credit (not just a deduction) for the costs of regulatory compliance, and have that tax credit taperingly ooze down to zero as the company grows.
Result: Budding enterpreneurs get training wheels and crutches while they grow their businesses, and don't get hurdle shy when the time comes to grow.
It depends, and I'm speaking of practical consequences, not theoretical principles.
The first one basically states that if you don't want to do business with ScumCorp XYZ because you object to them for some reason, that's a good thing to not do.
The second one however deals with Acme ABC affilitating itself with ScumCorp XYZ and refusing to play ball with you unless you play ball with ScumCorp XYZ. Which, if Acme ABC provides an essential service that it's hard to go without, or if the providers of said service are all at the mercy of XYZ, may mean that to get that service you have to kiss ass with XYZ no matter how much you may dislike them.
For a practical example, consider Facebook as ScumCorp XYZ, which makes a business out of sheeple whoring their personal information out to facbook's advertisers, and also provides an unexpected perk to Acme ABC's industry, say...prospective employers that see fit to use Facebook to help them screen applicants.
If bosses use facebook to evaluate an applicant, and consider lack of facebook as a black mark during the hiring process "if you don't have a facebook for me to snoop through don't bother applying" style, then you'll be competing against a bunch of sheeple who get ahead of you in the job line because they don't mind selling their souls to get a job. While you, the guy with the principles, get crowded out of the market.
Refusing to do business with someone on your own initiative is a basic right. it's when you collude with others, either by design or accident, that it gets murky.
Company A having influence on who Company B chooses to do business with is not often a good thing.
Voting with your wallet and whatnot by agreeing not to do business with them is all well and good...Until someone ELSE refuses to do business with YOU if you don't.
Example: Drop facebook, become harder to hire by bosses who are happy to pick easily snoopable sheeple over you.
When being smart is a disadvantage and you're competing with an army of morons, it's not easy to win.
The dumb part was actually reading the "we reserve the right to change our terms at any time" and NOT expecting Facebook to sneak in undeclinable leaks in your privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet don't take your laptop abroad in the first place.
If the thief hadn't stolen it, customs would have confiscated it anyway.
Then I'll just pull a gun on you and make you cut it loose.
The only real defense against getting robbed is to not have anything worth stealing.
The problem is that personal information is just too valuable for companies not to get a hard-on over how much their advertiser customers will pay for it, and they push and trick and deceive and play all sorts of games with TOS so that people don't realize they're being fleeced.
So exploiting personal information becomes lucrative and profitable, and not much is sacred except the almighty dollar.
With everyone universally doing it, everyone that doesn't is put at a competitive disadvantage, so the good guys get squeezed out of the market because they won't pay the piper.
This, in turn, creates a climate where being exploited is normal, and socially it becomes unpopular to resist the onslaught of data greed. Already I've heard stories of employers refusing to hire people that don't have facebook profiles for them to snoop through. Being a principled person that stands his ground and refuses to play games with his personal information is getting to be more and more disadvantageous, and they are getting squeezed out of society by less scrupulous or caring people that don't make a fuss about whoring themselves out to the same companies that squeezed out the same principled companies that would have left their information alone.
In the world of business, the only rule is survival of the fittest.
Doubly so when even the referees, umpires, and rulebook publishers are for sale.
One may as well try to keep bees away from flowers, as protect their personal information from companies that have every incentive to obtain it using whatever tactics they see fit.
And one may as well be a farmer sitting on an oil strike, and not selling out. Sooner or later someone who wants that oil badly enough is going to lie, cheat, steal, trick, or even flat out use violence to get it by hook or crook.
The only defense to being robbed that truly works is to not have anything worth stealing.
You aren't going to make everyone happy unless you run the government on unicorn farts instead of real money.
Someone has to foot the bill for a government that keeps it rule of law instead of rule of strongest mob with the fastest trigger fingers.
A network where big fat milliseconds are eaten up merely by the speed of light delaying things imply an uber extreme tolerance requirement.
I'd double check and see simply if error bounds are tight enough.
Booming business requires paying customers.
Paying customers have to get their money from somewhere.
Thing is that rich folks can take advantage of more loopholes and tax breaks than poor folks can.
It's not ironic at all, it's a disadvantaged group bitching about having to play on an uneven playing field, and rightly so. If the pot is calling the kettle black, it's a pretty damn bigger of a kettle than the pot is.
It doesn't help them either that the rich team has the referees on their own payroll (regulatory capture) and even has members on the rules committee getting their own pet regulations published in the rulebooks (lobbyists writing laws that politicians rubber stamp).
Which would be more damaging to the economy anyway?
Taxing poor people that have to fight and save to keep every hard earned penny, so that they spend even less than they would if they got to keep everything?
Or taxing rich people with shitloads of passive income that are more like money fountains than they are merely rich, and who, if their classwise subordinates got to keep and spend more of their own money, might even come out ahead if they got levied with taxes instead of their customers?
Remember, businesses run by rich people earn *their* money catering to customers spending their hard earned wages when they go shopping for goods and services.
Yes, government needs paid for, but that's simply all it is. A bill to the public for the service of civilization. And like it or not, the rich can afford to pay more in taxes, both raw dollars and in tax rates, than poor people can.
Not to mention that since rich people are rarer than poor people, you can probably pare down the size of the IRS while you're at it if you have fewer taxpayers to keep track of.
The argument that taxing the rich will disincentive innovation and enterpreneurhood only applies if joining the elite is made difficult. There shouldn't be a hard edge or bracket to cross. Use a smooth mathematical formula that makes the taxing process painless for the poor seeking to become rich.
Example:
Old broken method: Onerous regulations of businesses that exceed X number of employees, no appreciation for the strain of actually jumping over that hurdle.
New, smooth method: Realize that government regulation IS burdensome, so give businesses a tax credit (not just a deduction) for the costs of regulatory compliance, and have that tax credit taperingly ooze down to zero as the company grows.
Result: Budding enterpreneurs get training wheels and crutches while they grow their businesses, and don't get hurdle shy when the time comes to grow.
They're not idiots.
They just don't work for the voters that supposedly are supposed to decide whether or not they get into office.
It's an issue of loyalty, not competence.
Unfortunately statutes trump contracts.
What I'd like to know is who he told that wasn't entitled to know about it.
If the guy told the same network as the one he found the breach in, how is that a violation of privacy?
We need to know more about whose network he discovered to have an exploit, and who exactly he told about it.
It could be both actually.
I don't consider locking my personal information down pronto spazzing out.
At least Google made such a thing possible.
If I was naive enough to stay with Facebook I never would have had that luxury period.
I'm glad they're finally amputating the foot they shot themselves in.
I locked it down with the "go private and ban everyone" after their contact list goofup exposed craptons of information.
No way to find a list of people I'd banned made it impossible to reopen with my trusted friends.
Tax evasion is stealing money back from the government that the government has decreed through tax law is partially theirs after you earn it.
It's theirs because the government says it is. The same authority that establishes private property laws, I might add.
That's my point.
Why is Google the one being put in the spotlight?
Or, more generally...out of all the scapegoats out there, why pick Google?
Hmm, this is well known for a long time, and only NOW the IRS is getting around to auditing them?
I think Google just pissed off the wrong politician somehow.
Methinks their goody two shoes nature finally rubbed some corporation the wrong way.
It depends, and I'm speaking of practical consequences, not theoretical principles.
The first one basically states that if you don't want to do business with ScumCorp XYZ because you object to them for some reason, that's a good thing to not do.
The second one however deals with Acme ABC affilitating itself with ScumCorp XYZ and refusing to play ball with you unless you play ball with ScumCorp XYZ. Which, if Acme ABC provides an essential service that it's hard to go without, or if the providers of said service are all at the mercy of XYZ, may mean that to get that service you have to kiss ass with XYZ no matter how much you may dislike them.
For a practical example, consider Facebook as ScumCorp XYZ, which makes a business out of sheeple whoring their personal information out to facbook's advertisers, and also provides an unexpected perk to Acme ABC's industry, say...prospective employers that see fit to use Facebook to help them screen applicants.
If bosses use facebook to evaluate an applicant, and consider lack of facebook as a black mark during the hiring process "if you don't have a facebook for me to snoop through don't bother applying" style, then you'll be competing against a bunch of sheeple who get ahead of you in the job line because they don't mind selling their souls to get a job. While you, the guy with the principles, get crowded out of the market.
Refusing to do business with someone on your own initiative is a basic right. it's when you collude with others, either by design or accident, that it gets murky.
Company A having influence on who Company B chooses to do business with is not often a good thing.
Voting with your wallet and whatnot by agreeing not to do business with them is all well and good...Until someone ELSE refuses to do business with YOU if you don't.
Example: Drop facebook, become harder to hire by bosses who are happy to pick easily snoopable sheeple over you.
When being smart is a disadvantage and you're competing with an army of morons, it's not easy to win.
Regulators are pussies because corporate america has our politicians by the balls.
So facebook is to social networking what microsoft and windows are to personal computers.
The dumb part was actually reading the "we reserve the right to change our terms at any time" and NOT expecting Facebook to sneak in undeclinable leaks in your privacy.
If Spamhaus is using its currently intact credibility as leverage, that very much is not appropriate.
Spam is not profitable if you include his "partners" in the equation.
Namely, the owners of the computers that are infected and drafted into the botnet the spammer is using.
I bet that if the spammer had to send all the email himself on his own dime it would be very much not profitable.
It only works because they steal resources belonging to other people.
Posse Comitatus expressly forbids military involvement in civilian law enforcement affairs.
However, the United States Coast Guard is exempt.
How it doesn't work is expecting blind cooperation from other nations that might not even care about your problems.
Sheltering your enemy's enemy is a satisfying dick move.