If you'd only posted under your real name, I could assure you that if you were running for a local office, in a few hours alone with the voting machines at a warehouse, I could render your election completely impossible. Given the content of your post, this is probably a good idea.
All it takes is a simple file. If the edges of the pin are rounded a bit, the probability of a clean punch will drop dramatically. A careful examination of the "voting machine" will turn up other possibilities. Find some information on the internals and if you have any mechanical aptitude, you'll find some.
Any system is probably breakable given time, lots of clever, determined, and/or connected people will be working on the problem. That in itself is reason enough to shitcan the mechanical systems.
I posted the comment as A/C because I didn't have the time to log in and re-post. That said, you miss the point. Yes, you as an individual MIGHT be able to break into a particular unguarded location to alter the machine or the votes themselves. However, that individual site is bound to be guarded and monitored by multiple people from different ends of the political spectrum, so it requires at least a minor conspiracy and/or the willingness to get caught doing so. What's more, when large number of the votes are discovered to be invalid, the machine could be audited and signs of destruction would be evident and the votes themselves could almost certainly be visually inspected (you might be able to fool a machine reader by minor tweaking, but you're not going to be able to fool a human without making your alterations blatant to casual observers). Besides this still, even if you managed to mess up one voting location, because of the distributed nature of our voting systems, it would take a great many people, a MASSIVE conspiracy, to successfully alter the votes by more than, say, 1 percent and your odds of doing it without detection are very very slim. I simply don't believe it is possible to organize that kind of conspiracy (with our reasonable safeguards in place, i.e., redundant observers from different groups) without it being detected quickly, never mind it NEVER mind it not being detected and proven in the reasonably near future (a good detterant for would be conspirators). In short, the mechanical system has advantages because of its very physical nature. If you wish to alter the machine, it would require PHYSICAL changes and hence PHYSICAL evidence. If you wish to stuff the voting box, then you're going to need to carry a hell of a lot of paper....and so on.
This is NOT the case with electronic voting. All of these electronic systems fail in at least ONE key aspect. Either they allow for the possibility for massive tampering by a sufficiently privileged individual (or small group of individuals) OR they provide a redundant system to "check" the votes (which effectively defeats the purpose of having anonymous voting)...and this isn't even broaching the subject of cost, vastly increased complexity for all parties, and so on.
If you are going to split linguistic hairs here, then do yourself a favor and make sure that you are actually a competent user of the written language while you are chiding others.
While apparent lack of competence might well be used to easily rule out a particular individual as the perpetrator of a computer crime, the reverse is not true, that competence demonstrates a persons guilt. It could easily be argued that that skilled person was not just randomly chosen (although that's certainly possible), but was selected by some hacker because he frequents, say, IRC where he was selected because he was an attractive target (vulnerable) or (less likely) for some sort of revenge. Nor do the presence of tools show guilt as many hackers do, in fact, install such tools on the machines they hack with. Even an interactive Windows based tool cannot be entirely ruled out because of the growth of tools like VNC, BO, and that sort of thing. If a couple log entries (matched back to the computer) and the presence of tools on such machine is the extent of the evidence, then that really is reasonable doubt, in my informed opinion, despite the users "skill" (not that most of these hackings require that much) even if most people that find themselves in such a situation are in fact guilty as charged. However, if there are reams of logs that correspond tightly with the alleged hackers unusual hours, multiple machines/installations, or there's a tap on his computer (showing that there's not a simultaneous inbound connection that might be pulling the strings so to speak during activities that really require a human operator) then that sort of evidence can be used to paint a much more convincing picture imho.
I actually don't agree that taxing capital gains undesireably distorts markets, thus discouraging invesment in riskier assets
So you assert that lowering returns while holding losses essentially constant has no negative effects on investment? You assert that individuals will always invest in the same instruments even when they can get almost the same return for a fraction of the risk? My example clearly demonstrates the flaw in your belief. Whether or not you believe that our CURRENT capital gains tax structure in our CURRENT economic environment makes sense is a different debate. It is undeniable though that capping returns (with taxes or whatever instrument you wish to use) has a profound effect on investment activity.
(And I don't even believe that riskier assets generally yield a higher return for society. At least not without some proof.)
Obviously you haven't studied economics or finance with any real depth then. There are direct and well documented relationships between risk and (expected) return. Put simply, people will not take additional risk unless they are well compensated. The facts demonstrate this time and time again. What defines exactly how much extra return people need to justify additional "units" of risk is debated somewhat in the academic and financial communities (e.g., CAPM), but no one seriously denies this. Please study the Security Market Line or the CAPM model (a particular formula, even if somewhat debated). If you need some background, then read http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1941.pdf. Now you might try and argue that higher returns for the investor do not necessary mean higher value for society, but on the aggregate you'd be very much wrong; it's fundamental to pretty much any vision of free market theory. Society does not pay for what it does not want. Now maybe you might throw out the example cigarettes, drugs, or other vices, but these are very much debatable and they are exceptions to the rule.
In the '90s, with the old 'bad' tax structure, we had plenty of investement, innovation, and speculation. And even a budget surplus. (And yes the deficit takes money out of my pocket, since I'll have to pay for it in 10-30 years.
Except that that same tax structure was also around to watch the stock market collapse. The stock market is subject to a lot of other external factors than just the tax regime. For instance, the growth of tech firms, the medias actions (hyping or promoting fear), improvements in efficiency (largely due to tech), international markets, and so on. As for your particular assertion that the 90s was somehow "free" from this relationship, I'd like to remind you that there was a peculiar irrationality about all too many players in the market at that point. When so many people behaved irrationally, by investing in stocks that could never return enough to justify their valuations (or even break even), how can you even begin to argue that they're rational enough to judge risk and return. The fact is that people and even markets can make mistakes, but they DO behave rationally on the aggregate over time. In other words, you still need to construct a legal and tax framework where rational people can benefit from their actions.
Deficits in and of themselves are a bad thing, but the fact is that our tax cuts have had a negligible impact on the current deficit. When the economy slumps to such a degree tax receipts WILL fall dramatically regardless (short of MASSIVE tax increases which we could not do).
My ad hominem attack against bad rich people was direct at that subset alone. But my personal experience with CEOs suggests it's a larger subset than you believe. (as in 'I have my 6 Mil severance built into my contract, why should I work that hard' playing solataire . . )
Which was almost entirely irrelevant to what we were debating. What is your "e
Don't twist my words. I never said that actual taxes have a marginal rate of 75%, never mind capital gains. 75% was part of an example, as hypothetical as my 1 in 3 crapshoot. Neither tax structure nor investment structure is exactly like it, but it is nonetheless useful to illustrate a point. Furthermore, whether or not it is 75% is practically irrelevant to the example. Even 15% has a very drastic impact on the entire equation. Furthermore, you truly cannot say that 75% is entirely unrealistic. When you add up capital gains, local taxes, estate taxes, secondary income taxes, and so on, it can and DOES add up (yes, I know people in precisely this situation) to this amount.
As for your assertion that allowances for capital losses somehow restore balance to this system, you are ignoring the fact that the system doesn't do nearly enough to create a balance of any sort. While it is true that you can theoretically deduct your losses, you are limited to 3,000 dollars a year and those losses can ONLY be deducted against capital gains, not other taxes of any sort. This has a devastating impact in practice. Imagine for a second that you're a 60 something year old wealthy retired businessman. If you were to invest in my theoretical crapshoot, then you'd lose stastically in practice because a) you're unlikely to live far enough into the future and keep on investing to enjoy the future deductions on capital gains b) your money is essentially being withheld from you for an extended period of time (this has both real and human impacts)
Whether or not you think that taxing capital gains is ultimately necessary, my point is simple and undeniable: it DOES have a distortionary and undesirable effects on markets, namely it discourages investments into riskier assets (which are generally yield a higher return for society). In other words, it caps the upside far more than the tax system can possible reduce the downside (in both absolute and in human terms).
Your ad hominem argument that there are bad-rich people out there does nothing to demonstrate that the tax structure can and does hurt investment. The fact is that CEOs and investment bankers are a very small percentage of the wealthy, never mind the fact that MOST of them are pretty much above board anyways.
Firstly, investments of all sorts are generally considered to be assets, not just cash and gold.
Secondly, do you really honestly believe that the "rich" get richer by squirelling it all away under their beds or something? No, you lose money that way every year with inflation. Gold is generally a pretty poor performer and it has no concrete value (e.g., it is subject to the same laws of supply and demand that your house is) Likewise, if you put it into a standard savings account, you might as well be standing still.
The rich get richer by buying into higher risk investments, e.g., privately-held companies, publically held stocks, and loans. As a general rule, the higher the return available, the higher the risk. If you look carefully at the numbers, you will see that, with the exception of certain institutional investors, it is the rich that comprise MOST equity in privately held companies. Now you might argue that the rich can do this because they can better afford to take risks or that they can aggregate their risks so as to diminish the overall risk, but the fact remains that they perform a very useful function in society.
Do you really believe that when a person buys art (a very small percentage of any wealthy individuals income anyways) that it just sits in some hole in the ground? No, it gets transfered to another wealthy person who WILL almost certainly eventually spend it or hopefully to an artist or some agent thereof that directly promotes the arts--in either event, the money keeps on moving. What do you care if it passes through an art house first?
The stock market on the aggregate over the past century or two has averaged better than 12 percent return per year. While that may not sound like much to you, when you compound the returns over a period of time, it quickly adds up to a lot of money. In other words, the wealthy already have significant encouragement to invest. Putting a gun to their heads and saying that they MUST invest constantly or face losing it all would be silly and counter-productive. Don't forget that the rich must get rich somehow first. If the government starts drastically dictating how the money is to be allocated that it just one more reason NOT to make the effort in the first place.
I also find it highly ironic that you're arguing for taxes so as to spur the rich to invest. Many of these taxes on dividends and capital gains are what dissuades the rich from investing in some of highest risk investments. [Put in the simplest of terms: If you have a 1 in 3 shot of winning a pool and a 2 and 3 shot of losing every dollar you invest, say, 1m dollars, then that pool must be at least 3M dollars before any rational individual would even THINK about investmenting, else it'd be a net average loss. Let's imagine for most people that that one in 3 shot must offer at least 4M dollars. Now what happens when the government decides to take 75% of that money from you in the event that you do win? Woops, game over. This point is this: If you tax windfalls heavily and don't reimburse losses at the other end, then your tax will have distortionary and undesirable effects on the markets]
Btw, the rich also lost disproportionately more money when the stock market fell over the past couple of years. It's no coincidence.
"I would love to have a small device like the Apple iPod in a small relational database to store virtually everything I would need for family and personal records, including health records."
Why am I not surprised that the chairman of the FCC wants to come up with a way for forms to be filled out quicker? Why am I not surprised that a senior government beauracrat wants to take all of my personal information and put it in one easy to subpoena location?
It is pretty clear that this would contain strictly the sort of information that you fill out on a regularly on various forms, meaning that it is data that any competent government can already easily access without even needing a subpoena (excepting perhaps medical history). Besides which, if the government really wanted to "track" you like this, there are far quicker, easier, and more discrete ways that they could get this data. Frankly, I think something like this would be pretty useful and the risks, if properly implemented, are minimal. If you have, say, AIDS, and are worried about that information being inadvertantly or maliciously disclosed, then you simply wouldn't put that data on the device in the first place. It's not necessarily an all or nothing proposition.
Can this system keep track of a 'bar tab' for me as well? Does it provide ANY value to me as a customer? (update: after RTFA, the answer given was 'give-up-your-anonymity-for-"safety"')
What if I get 'blacklisted'? How long does my name stay on the list?
Can I SEE the list? Will they at least TELL me I'm on the list?
Wait a second... Am I on this list automatically, once my picture/ID is recorded? Before I've even done anything? (See previous line)
I'm assuming the Police would LOVE access to this list, so they'll have it, officially or not. (update: I just RTFA; YES, they can subpoena info from the list)
I'm assuming local employers will LOOOVE access to this list... A reason to fire current employees or refuse future candidates.
(update: after RTFA, and I love the comparison of this system with renting a car. I didn't know going to a bar was so serious...)
I'll preface this by saying that I know nothing about this particular system, but think about it for a second. It has the POTENTIAL for huge secondary benefits to you, the customer. First and foremost, if you go into a bar which impliments this, then you are far less likely to have a run-in with an abusive asshole, thus you are more likely to have a more enjoyable experience. Second, such bars may well be able to loosen up security because of this, meaning that you can relax a bit more and maybe even have to pay less per drink since the bars would have less overhead associated with paying for additional bouncers and such. Remember that in reasonably competitive (free) markets, benefits that accrue to business owners tend to also benefit consumers.
"Intellectual Property, like flying pigs, cannot be found in nature."
By which meaning of "nature" can any form of "property" be found? What is your point?
How about the concept of privacy? Does the lack of existence of "privacy" in nature make it any less important or worthy of protection in our society? No.
Lastly, the alternate form might be misconstrued as pointing out that IP is a fuzzy, almost meaningless term, since it lumps together trade secrets, copyrights, patents and who knows what else.
I disagree. It is a very good term to describe a concept, a concept which happens to be very useful to group related instances of concepts together. While the body of laws that protect varying forms of intellectual property may be profoundly different, the underlying concept and the legal reasoning for protecting them is essentially the same. Just because some people misuse the term does not make it any less valid.
Where did I say that Open Source should never be used or that security is always critical? When it comes to my own personal security, I take a pretty relaxed approach because I don't believe that many people are interested in hacking me. What I was addressing is the notion that Open Source software automatically tends to be automatically secure by virtue of it being open for inspection. It is my experience that MOST open source software is LESS secure than their more popular proprietary counterparts in practice [this is not just a function of the vulnerabilties that exist or window of time before the first patch, but also the window of time till the patch can be installed by end users, the ease with which hackers can create exploits (easier w/ OSS), etc]. Yes, I do believe the Linux kernel, Apache, and a couple other packages are pretty secure as they are now because of their overwhelming popularity with developers. However, the truth is that a typical, say, linux installation uses hundreds of other lesser-known packages and may run a couple dozen services which receive NO inspection. If the total developer community doesn't really put forth the effort to make SURE the code is secure, then I'd far rather that code be closed than open.
As for OpenSSH or OpenSSL, I cannot comment on their particular status in detail because I haven't worked with them enough. It is a matter of relative risk. I suspect OpenSSH and OpenSSL are relatively secure because they are very popular with the developer community and, consequently, receive significant review (even if not by the greatest of experts)--so they unlikely to have such well known flaws. That doesn't mean though that the hundreds of applications that employ them are implemented in a secure way or that other aspects of those applications are secure (e.g., the SSL socket may be secure, but it doesn't much matter if some corny CGI that it's ultimately connection to isn't vulnerable to the most trivial of SQL injection).
Now I'm not going to argue that Microsoft or dozens of other corporate developers have been that security conscious either. Many of them have been too lax because they didn't fully realize that it could negatively impact their sales. I believe it is starting to dawn on them though. Contrary to the average slashdotter, I think they can achieve pretty good security by corporate decree in the coming years. Whereas I don't think this is likely in the open source community, particularly with most of these lesser applications, because so many of them are written on whim and put into production without anyone really vetting them out....the mantra that many eyes makes bugs shallow (whether they word it like this or not) lulls too many into a false sense of security. Just because it is open does not mean qualified eyes are REALLY on the code, but it is a sure thing that a hacker CAN read that same open code.
If CIPE were closed source, would he have even been able to write this article? Unless I missed something, nobody ever claimed OS was flawless, just that the flaws were open to scrutiny
I get tired of the excuses the OSS community proffers. Yes, you can argue that because the code is open, this security expert was able to easily audit the code. There is some truth in this. However, it is very much of a double edged sword. In the case of such utter apathy as Peter so aptly demonstrated I would argue that its openess is far more of a liability than an asset. These vulnerabilities are well known. These packages could have been exploited many years now by any competent programmer with a lick of motivation. No leap of insight was required to exploit them because clearly no one had the skill and the care enough to properly audit and fix these packages. If you are a hacker trying to break into a server running a number of lesser open source applications, then this kind of openness provides one very viable path to breakin, providing you are willing to put forth the effort.
The only way that the argument for open source software security holds water is when its security is vigorously pursued by a very active developer community such that a hacker must be able to see and exploit before, at bare minimum, a handful of qualfied experts can detect, fix, and efficiently deploy patches to the more dilligent end users. In other words, it's a race against time and a numbers games in which the deck is hopefully stacked against the hacker. However, if that open source community cannot even be bothered to hunt, fix, and deploy patches for well known vulnerabilities, then this same openness makes it that much easier for the hacker.
Peter just demonstrated a case of this apathy. My gut tells me that this the rule, not the exception. The core linux kernel, apache, and perhaps a coupe dozen others are the few projects that can claim a truly active developer and security community. I, for one, wouldn't trust any of the other open source packages for any computers that I deemed critical insofar as security goes.
I don't believe it only took you even 30 minutes to install and configure everything start to finish. I'm not talking about badly about OpenBSD per se, but running a full blown OS, particularly one that isn't designed to be PnP (so to speak) in this sort of application is a suboptimal solution because it is total overkill for almost every home user that just needs NAT. Yes, I ran linux, ip chains, ip masq, etc a couple years ago to do the same thing, but I soon realized that the newer devices could do every bit as good of a job for my more practical needs (excluding the hacks to bridge networks and such), without the fan noise, without the hassle when I need to reconfigure, and for only 100 bucks. The time I spent tooling around my linux box easily exceeded 500 dollars worth of my time over the years; I cannot say the same for my cheap linksys solution and I haven't had any trouble with it, except for having to reboot it once every 6 months or so. As for the script kids, how does your openbsd box help in this regard? You obtain a new IP via dhcp? So can I with my linksys, but the average user doesn't even have to worry about this kind of specific targeted attack in the first place. If the concern is the worm du jour, then changing IPs does nothing.
and i'm using the built-in pf for NAT in the openbsd kernel when i say "firewall" which means openbsd is directly relevant
Hardly, my 100 dollar linksys router that provides my windows box with NAT afforded me the same protection (and in fact practically any NAT implemenation) from these sorts of attacks and I didn't have to spend more than 30 seconds to make it do so. How much time did you spend installing NICs, software, and configuring your box to do this basic stuff? Do you think your time is worth anything?
Finally: I notice you're opposed to high tuition AND grants (as opposed to loans). The latter translates to low tuition for less well off people. In effect you opposed to high tuition AND low tuition - you're a tough one to please.
No, I'm not opposed to grants. I'm opposed to practically 0 tuition costs, not affordable tuition. It does happen and they're shifting more towards that point. If the student has to take out 10-20K dollars in low interest loans (because their parents can't pay), or has to work, say, 20 hours a week in order to attend 4 years at a top ranked school, I think it is reasonable, affordable, and even desirable. I think some amount of direct burden on either the parents or the students is necessary to prevent abuse, a sense of entitlement, and even simply to encourage making the most of the situation. The trouble is that, given the state of the financial aid system, many students are looking at much larger figures, which neither they nor their parents can afford.
You can argue to the contrary till you turn blue in the face, but I've known too many people over the years (even in the past year) that have been denied reasonable amounts of financial aid because of the inflexibility of the financial aid system. It is VERY formulaic. Yes, they will do some case by case analyzing of the numbers, but only if you meet certain criteria will they begin to get really flexible. A great many middle class families still fall between the cracks.
Note: I was not arguing that Princeton is extremely stuffy or snotty, but the very-much-upward demographics of the students is well known and undeniable. If most of your peers were truly middle class, then you truly were amongst a rare group there.
We'll simply have to agree to disagree here. I see the financial aid system as STILL being extremely flawed, recent measures are just band-aid measures, because they they fail to aim at the real problem for middle class families, the sky-rocketing cost of tuition and school related expenses. Can you honestly tell me that you did not see millions of dollars wasted every year on new facilities and programs at Princeton? Have you seen the new boat house? Do you know how many millions that cost to build (yes yes, I know most of the money will be said to have come from "other" sources, but that's a different argument)? Do you know how extra money it tacked onto the base tuition to cover the broken financial aid system costs? That extra 10K+ a year is a fatal blow to many middle class families that could otherwise afford tuition. Unfortunately very few of the poor, who easily show "need", can make meet the criteria of a school like Princeton especially, so what you're left with is a largely white, upper middle class, student body. It's no accident that Princeton is as homogeneous as it is.
As for the claim that these same private schools cannot be expected to parse the parents efforts, thrift, and what not, I say hogwash. They do it and similar things ALL the time during the admissions process. Flawed though it may be, at least it would be more fair than the overly formalized and unrealistic equations they use to compute financial aid "need".
I would be the first to argue that there is life outside of the Ivy Leagues. However, in the scope of this discussion, it is a copout to say that they can just go to state school. You can hardly say that your school has the best and the brightest students and/or applicants (or even anything approximating that) when you cut out such a large portion of students that could otherwise compete. When you demand that middle class families make huge sacrifices (if they're even lucky enough to have the option), just so their child can attend a good private school. You knock out many true middle class families, you limit the schools talent. You knock out the middle class, you limit social mobility. You prevent many of the brightest minds from recieving the opportunity to receive a truly rich education. Yes, many, even most, of the brightest and most capable people I know did not attend fancy private schools, but I'll also say that many of these same people, particularly those from less affluent backgrounds, suffer a handicap, despite their superior intelligence and abilities, because they were denied the kind of education that they could have recieved (them being who they are--not the avg student at so many of these schools today). For instance, I've seen on more than a couple occassions, the most gifted and hardest working employees being denied advancement to top management positions simply because they lack the minimum polish (as far as grammar, communication, etc go) that most Ivy league graduates receive traditionally (at least if they really want it). Is it still possible to succeed? Yes, but you have to work a whole lot harder than those who manage to coast through schools like Princeton.
I hate to be blunt, but this poster makes no sense. On one hand, he blasts the system of expensive, top-flight schools, and yet says his friend was "forced" into a state school. That's like people complaining about how hot people are so shallow. And his friend, unfortunately, is rich. With over a half-million dollar in home equity, she is a firmly entrenched member of the elite he hates so much.
No, to be blunt, I am rich. I do not hate the rich. My friend is NOT rich. Her father earned maybe 60K dollars a year and they were nearing retirement age and they had 2 kid nearing college age. Middle class? Sure. Wealthy or elite? No. They had equity because they SAVED and invested wisely. What cost them roughly 100K dollars a couple decades earlier in Seattle rapidly appreciated in value (like virtually ALL of Seattle now). Ok, you might argue that they could sell it, but first off, it's not easy to buy a decent house in Seattle proper for less than 500K. Second, should they be forced to take make such a drastic change in their lifestyle to support it? Third, what about their life savings?
Here's some math for you:
700K - 300K (2 kids for 4 years at Princeton) - 100K mortgage - 100K (taxes, transaction costs, moving, etc) ---- 200K dollars. Go buy a decent house in decent part of in Seattle for 200K dollars. Ok, the math there is a lot more complex than that, but the idea that that house makes them rich enough is really laughable. The simple fact of the matter is that, given the status quo at the time of the financial aid system, good private schools were not affordable for them. The parents could have sold the house, destroyed their lifestyle, and still not be guaranteed being able to afford 4 years of private school. (Yet if her father chose to rent a nice apt, drive a nice car...to have little net worth, financial aid wouldn't even be a question).
The poster also assumes that poor people got that way because they are lazy, and that is not the case. Backgrounds matter. Children of immigrants might be poor, but that does mean they are lazy? Of course not. They probably have it much harder than the average Joe.
Where did I say that? Many people EARN more because they WORK harder. Many people of the SAME income are WEALTHIER (a different concept) because they choose NOT to spend; they choose to SAVE. Many people are more educated because choose to study longer and harder. There many be tons of exceptions to all of these, but that does not mean that you can conclude from any of that all or even most poor people are lazy. Nor does it necessarily mean that creating a financial aid system that levels these makes sense either. It particularly doesn't make sense to let spending run amok at these universities in the flawed belief that the financial aid system is even approximately "fair". Nor does it make sense to charge those who can barely cover their own costs an extra 10-15K a year to subsidize tuition of students that can't even afford 10K a year.
The business world rewards intelligence and risk-taking behavior? My Introduction to Management textbook said, "the people who get promoted often are not the best workers, but the best politicians." In my experience, it's quite often the people who exhibit "intelligence and risk taking behaviors" are the ones who are labeled "management issues" or "not a team player" or "not a Company man" and are let go. Why? They represent a threat. No, there is tremendous pressure to get along by going along at the expense of these very attributes. All too often, this meets with disastarous results.
Yes, the business world rewards intelligence and risk taking behavior. While it is true in a short term micro-level scale that those who get promoted are sometimes (and maybe even mostly at some larger companies) not the most capable, but by and large, I would say that those that really get advanced are those that stick their necks out when it is proper. This is particularly true amongst the upper echelon. You don't get rich by being a plodder. You may NOT offend your immediate supervisor by not sticking your neck out, and thus secure your chances of a single promotion, but that mentality will never get you far (well relatively rarely). There are other ways of taking "risk" in business. For instance, by: starting your own business, choosing a different career path, working for a different company, etc. I, for instance, could have made significantly more money at a larger company for the past couple years, but I'm working at a smaller private company, that pays me less, but also gives me much greater chance to do more things, gain experience, and ultimately acquire real wealth (by allowing me to acquire options, buy stock, etc). Likewise, I've chosen to pursue an entrepreneurial career path instead of starting out in investment banking like a good many of my peers. In any event, it's called RISK for a reason, read another textbook.
All these things taken together show me that college administrators are listening to people's complaints about aid.
I disagree. If they really were concerned, then they'd lower tuitions dramatically (I know at least one of these top schools can by roughly 10K this year as I have some inside information (which I'll not name)--without having to change a thing really--others can by trimming the fat). Paying less attention to net worth in housing may have helped my friend, but it still leaves millions of students out in the cold. What about parents who own small businesses (e.g., sole proprietorships, partnerships, etc)? What about parents who simply save more? Why should they be penalized heavily for saving, investing, etc? Why should we penalize people who work harder? Part of what drives MANY parents to succeed is to ensure that their children have the best opportunities possible. This system creates a lumpy and messy system where you can work harder and succeed more and ultimately be left worse off as far as sending your kids to a top school goes. Many assets simply can't by transfered or shifted around that easily. I realize that a good number of parents simply can't make it without financial aid, no matter how hard they try, but please realize that the financial aid system is an aweful compromise.
Also, you mention how Princeton is not very diverse. If anything the elite school bend over backwards to show how diverse they are, even if they have to lower their standards. Of course, that is a debate for another day....
Well Princeton is one of the worst in that respect. Part of my problem is that they go about seeking diversity in the wrong way. They all too often seek out students that they can describe as African American whose experiences are often either that of an upper middle class person OR lower class (and ilprepared to compete in serious programs), but then effectively reject the many many more students, such as those of recent immigrants (many of whom have real stories to tell), between lack of consideration and lack of financial aid, even though they are very very capable of competing with those students. All too often they admit people that just can't cut it in a serious fields of study.
Also, I know that Princeton recently announced that they would eliminate loans from their financial aid packages and replace them with grants.
I've heard and I think it's a real mistake. Either the parents OR the students should at least pay something. Moderate student loans and work study programs are not overly onerous and they can go a long way to keep people honest, to make sure they really want to go there, etc. It shouldn't be viewed as an entitlement.
While I come from a family that was able to easily afford this kind of tuition 4 kids at top flight universities, I must say that this system is not even remotely fair and it is a real burden on more middle class families (including some of my friends and peers). Sure, if your parents are working near minimum wage jobs AND you meet their academic criteria (a rare group), then the system will normally cover all your expenses. However, if you are unfortunate enough to have more successful parents who spent and saved wisely, then you WILL be penalized. It is a perverse system because it penalizes thrift and rewards spending. For instance, one of my friend's parent bought a house about 30 years ago now in Seattle, while they otherwise lived very modestly, their relatively modest house appreciated in value to roughly 700K (from the 100K or so it cost before). The schools only needed to see the house to decline any substantial financial aid. The parents couldn't realistically sell short of moving to a very different part of town (not to mention leaving their friends, house, job, etc). My friend couldn't ask her parents to sell. The end result was that she was forced to attend a state school. This is perverse because her parents worked harder than most people, were more educated, etc. Meanwhile other (less capable) peers of mine, whose parents certainly earned more money than the friend I just described, but saved little, were able to enjoy substantial financial aid without their parents having to alter their lifestyle substantially.
I am sorry, but I tend to believe that we should reward hard work in this country. The system really damages that. The truth is these schools are WASTING a lot of money, some of the top schools are even charging more than they need to (but keep it high to keep their prestige and admissions in check), and then justifying it by saying that the financial aid system makes all right. Well, it doesn't. The system sucks for a lot of people. If you're rich, it's not too bad. If you're poor and you're fortunate enough to be admitted, then you're set (but also quite rare). I don't even consider myself much of a social crusader, but I truly consider it regressive, even if the pretense is "progressive". Those 2nd and 3rd generation families, whose families otherwise moved quickly up the social ranks hit an unnecessarily steep wall when it comes to entering the elite schools.
Take a look at a school like Princeton some time (if that's where you're going). Almost all the students are white and upper middle class or higher and most frankly aren't that impressive academically or otherwise. Sure, most students will have a modicum of intelligence, but more importantly they know how to work the system. If you truly leveled the playing fields economically, you'd still see a large percentage coming from more affluent families (because they are most likely to have benefited from superior educations and may even be a little smarter on average), but I assure you that you'd see a lot more kids from blue collar and clerical backgrounds. This is really not a system the delivers "fairness" OR the most capable students (because it cuts out a large percentage of students, those somewhere between rich and poor).
Real socio-economic advancement is happening, by and large, by bypassing these elite institutions entirely, by attending lesser schools (or at least less recognized ones), but nonetheless succeeding in fields that reward true hard work, skill, intelligence, and risk taking behavior (e.g., business, engineering, etc). It doesn't have to be that way and it has gotten dramatically worse over the past decade or two as tuition has climbed...
Signed,
A person who has little direct cause for complaint.
Slashdot is a great place for it, but I'm not getting into a raving argument over the issue -- I'd love to, but it's more sport than productive discussion and I have no time for it.
Well I agree that slashdot is not a productive forum, but how can you defend these lawsuits when you can't even construct a single hypothetical scenario that would yield a positive result? When is it ever fair, proper, just, reasonable, or efficient to transfer wealth from one shareholder group to another by force of law? What could the non-partipant shareholders possibly do to deserve the transfer of their equity to other shareholders (not to mention the ~30% loss that goes to contingency fees, plus god knows how much in lost time and legal defense)?
I'd be more interested in your experiences -- do you have some direct experience with the class action system?
Yes, I do. I've held shares in companies that have been victims of these lawsuits and have known management at more than a few that have fallen victim to this due to no fault of their own. One of my relatives is also a justice on DE's Supreme Court which sees the majority of these lawsuits. I studied finance. My parents have taken a number of companies public. And so on. I am informed. They simply should not exist, even where fraud is documented, there is just no excuse for transfering wealth from one shareholder to the other.
I think we need to agree to disagree on one point: You seem to see shareholders as more innocent bystanders than I do. I'm much more in favor of caveat emptor, short of fraud: The current shareholders own the company. When they buy it, they get the whole package: Valuable assets created created by past shareholders, and costly liabilities also created by past shareholders. I don't see why they should get all the benefits but not the costs. I can see the argument that, while they're theoretically owners, realistically very few have the power, skills, or access to info to act like traditional owners.
I simply can't agree to that because I don't think it's remotely reasonable. I'm not arguing that the shareholders should be free from any sort of litigation because they can enjoy the fruits of certain criminal behavior. For instance, if the company defrauds customers or pollutes the environment, then you can make a good case that the shareholders were enriched by the crime and so should be held liable [although I do have some reservations about abuses here too]. However, there is world of difference between wealth being effectively transfered from shareholders to OUTSIDE parties (e.g., customers, government, etc) and wealth being transfered from all current shareholdes to (what is typically a MINORITY) of (ex) shareholders. It is disingenious to assert that the current shareholders were beneficeries of fraud any more than the alleged victims. They're both shareholders in the EXACT SAME BOAT and those victims could have held onto their shares if they felt it was worth more. There is no, even remotely plausible, rationale that I can concieve of to justify this. While you might be able to argue "caveat emptor" with any equity, regardless of the reasons for the caveat, this is ONLY burden on those who get defrauded. It's not making money back on the aggregate and it's not penalizing wrong doers. It's like saying OK, we've got 100 dollars to split 10 ways, there's less money there then I hoped, and even though you had no more control or ability than I, I want more than my fairshare, god dammit, whatever the cost, and I don't even care if 40 of those dollars is lost from the pool in the process. Does this do ANYTHING to control fraud? No. Does this penalize wrong doers? No. Does this truly do anything to compensate the wronged on average? No. The system is banking on a unpredictable legal system for a lottery reward system. If you're the victim of fraud, in fact, you're worse off under this system because money is LOST on the aggregate from the pool and the market KNOWS this, so your stock is going to fall that much further. It's worse than a zero sum game. Only those that "win" the lottery can be said to have benefited, but we all know that the lottery is a losing proposition.
Agreed -- only fraud or criminal behavior, not mistakes, should make the company liable.
Most of these lawsuits have NOTHING to do with fraud or criminal behavior.
I agree: Juries, lawyers, judges, etc. all suck. But what's a better alternative? No matter what, we're stuck with nothing better than human beings making the decisions. I think Churchill said something like, 'Democracy is the worst possible form of government, until you consider the alternatives'.
I would argue that in any sort of technical case, as most of these lawsuits really are, that juries are completely incapable of assessing fault or damages. If you're going to have a jury that assesses fault and damages essentially at random, then you're better off not having one at all. If you're going to have a jury, then it SHOULD be a more educated one that is capable of handling these matters. Yes, all processes involving humans are going to have some flaws, but some systems are so flawed that we must dispense of them entirely.
Again, what alternative is there? I'd agree that the class-action system
It's not like current shareholders transfer their shares to the suing shareholders. Some assets, owned by the current shareholders, are transferred out of the company to the pockets of the injured parties.
So? The loss of those assets can make those share worthless. In many cases, this can mean the loss of the majority of someone's life savings.
If companies deceive their shareholders, as more than a few have done, what's wrong with paying the injured parties (should they just suffer?), bad press, and adverse market reaction? What other resolution do you suggest?
Yes, to a certain point, they SHOULD just suffer. Unless management is truly negligent or behaves criminally/unethically, the shareholders should not expect this sort of compensation, and even then that should come out of management's (or the boards) pocket, not the shareholders. You assume certain risks when you take an equity position in a company. You even assume the risk of management making mistakes--that is life and that is an explicit function of taking an equity position. It is not right, fair, or sensible to expect other shareholders to pay you because you invested at the wrong time. It may not have been your fault, you may not have been able to forsee, but, then in that case, nor was it the present shareholders fault either.
Even in the case of an Enron, where "the company" behaved in an unquestionably unethical and criminal manner, it does not make sense to transfer funds from current shareholders to past ones. It was management that lied, not the shareholders. If you are claiming you were injured as a shareholder and had no ability to forsee the events that unfolded, then how could you penalize the other shareholders? This menality over amplifies every problem (and creates MANY that simply do not exist). It effectively forces people to join the class action suits for fear of being cut out. It's just plain idiotic. It's particularly bad in our current legal system when the juries cannot reasonably be expected to know what was reasonable, prudent, or even ethical. Sure, in the case of Enron, you have some rather black and white circumstances, but that's a very small part of these lawsuits. These extreme cases are particularly distorting because a) they are VERY rare b) they, the Enrons, are not the target of big attention because their pockets are generally very shallow by the time a lawsuit is possible c) the legal system already provides criminal and civil penalties in the cases where management misbehaves to this extent. The truth is that 99% of the money comes from some of the biggest, most legit companies, with some of the most minor (or even non-existant) infractions because that's where the lawyers can make their money best.
Yes, there are some corrupt lawyers and frivilous lawsuits, just as there are some corrupt companies, executives, directors, doctors, politicians, programmers -- no walk of life is safe. Why should the lawyers get the blame and the corporate world get off scott free?
Because the "corporate" world is not the one paying here, the shareholders are. Because THESE particular class of lawyers (I know and call many lawyers friends) are by and large a drain on the system and 99% of their cases should have never been filed. Because the instrument to extract awards is so inaccurate and incapable of awarding a proper and realistic amounts in most of these cases. Because these cases are often what push companies over the edge and cause employees to lose their jobs. An Enron may never recover, but a company that loses 10m in sales can likely recover on its own--unless the equity markets are too afraid to reinvest with a potential 5b dollar judgement waiting in the winds. It amplifies and distorts. Period.
There is nothing "sort of" about it. I never said that the shareholders stand personally liable, BUT they do stand to lose every last cent that they invested. That is a huge deal. Saying that "the company pays" is very misleading because all of that money is coming from CURRENT shareholders. There is no other "company" that foots the bill here (unless you include the limited extent that creditors and the average employee lose out in some of these cases--neither deserve that anymore).
For instance, there have been a number of shareholder lawsuits that have sued the corporation because (they allege) management didn't warn them that some specific bad shit could happen in their 10Q and they lost money when the stock fell as a result. The end result: a net transfer of wealth from current shareholders to those few past (stupid/greedy) shareholders. Furthermore, it's not just a zero sum game (even if all parties are presumably the same), because a very large percentage of that is in legal fees (not to mention bad press, adverse market reaction, etc) between the contingency fees, defense, etc--the shareholder pays for it all). It just does not make sense and it severely distorts the market for these troubled companies.
Btw, there is not much difference between a public and privately held corporation as far as shareholder liability is concerned. In fact, unless the shareholder is an officer of the company or is a member of the board, then there is no difference--it's just a little more likely in a private corporation.
First and foremost, it's a transfer of wealth from one shareholder group to another, plain and simple. Very rarely is that money paid by management as individuals; almost all of it comes out of the shareholders pockets. Put differently, you're punishing people who likely had no ability to influence the outcome of the alleged event, and may not even have been invested at that time. Even after an Enron has been "purged" of the guilty, who is going to invest in that company with all the risk associated with a shareholder lawsuit? You're compounding shareholder trouble. Second, many of these claims are dubious at best, but because of the technical nature of accounting and the typical jury pools lack of experience, the outcome is far from certain even when the managements innocence is well understood by the financial community. The result is that many companies settle because that one in 500 chance of a 1b dollar verdict is too much to handle. The lawyers can and do get rich without a single guilty verdict--I know of some particularly egregious cases from first hand experience.
Do not confuse reproduction and distribution with actual publishing and promotion. They are two different concepts. While it is true that that any idiot that can pony up a few dollars each month can POTENTIALLY reach every individual with internet access, that does not cover the costs necessary to ACTUALLY get copy in front of people's faces (e.g., marketing) AND PAY for the costs of producing the work in the first place. The fact is that while there are billions of BLOGs out there, the overwhelming majority of Americans still get their news from other sources be it online in the form of CNN.com, TV, or News--it's all derived from but a couple original newsources and money is kicked up the chain. You can argue that it's luck. You can argue that said consumers are foolish. You can argue whatever you want, but at the end of the day, the content that consumers prefer and (ultimately) pay for DOES revolve around copyright.
If you really believe that "publishing" (in your simplistic sense of the word) is so simple these days, then why is it that there are so few authors that are actually doing just this, by going online, cutting out the middlemen, lowering costs, and what have you? There are probably hundreds or thousands of good authors that are currently languishing without publishing contracts. Why don't we see handfuls of authors producing quality work and living off their online publishing? [There is a world of difference between someone's musings on a blog and most published work] Whey don't we see the majority of popular works "published" in this fashion? I'll tell you why, because it fundamentally rests on copyright. The authors depend on publishers to promote their works, to find them shelfspace. The publishers, in turn, necessarily have to raise prices to cover their costs (to aggregate risk), which relies heavily on copyright.
The fact is that publishing has been quite cheap for decades--hardly at a point where only a few publishers can afford to enter the business. Neither the cost of the printing presses nor the cost of the material is the issue. Shelf space IS the driving force. Very few bookstores or retail chains (e.g., grocery stores) are going to put no-name publishers on their shelves because consumers are unlikely to buy and because they'll ultimately lose money on it. The situation is not so different today. Sure, the internet may have created the first venue for cheap musings and near-real time information, but for more substantial works (e.g., novels, reference materials, etc), the formula is still much the same as it has always been.
If anything COPYRIGHT is more relevent than it has ever been because it is EASIER to violate while its value has only grown (compare the # of volume and variety of books published today compared to 50, 100, 200 years ago). Violating copyright is more akin to short-circuiting than anything else...
Slashdot Mirror
This is NOT the case with electronic voting. All of these electronic systems fail in at least ONE key aspect. Either they allow for the possibility for massive tampering by a sufficiently privileged individual (or small group of individuals) OR they provide a redundant system to "check" the votes (which effectively defeats the purpose of having anonymous voting)...and this isn't even broaching the subject of cost, vastly increased complexity for all parties, and so on.
Btw, can you say ad hominem?
ITS = the possessive form of the pronoun "it"
IT'S = the contraction of "it" and "is"
If you are going to split linguistic hairs here, then do yourself a favor and make sure that you are actually a competent user of the written language while you are chiding others.
While apparent lack of competence might well be used to easily rule out a particular individual as the perpetrator of a computer crime, the reverse is not true, that competence demonstrates a persons guilt. It could easily be argued that that skilled person was not just randomly chosen (although that's certainly possible), but was selected by some hacker because he frequents, say, IRC where he was selected because he was an attractive target (vulnerable) or (less likely) for some sort of revenge. Nor do the presence of tools show guilt as many hackers do, in fact, install such tools on the machines they hack with. Even an interactive Windows based tool cannot be entirely ruled out because of the growth of tools like VNC, BO, and that sort of thing. If a couple log entries (matched back to the computer) and the presence of tools on such machine is the extent of the evidence, then that really is reasonable doubt, in my informed opinion, despite the users "skill" (not that most of these hackings require that much) even if most people that find themselves in such a situation are in fact guilty as charged. However, if there are reams of logs that correspond tightly with the alleged hackers unusual hours, multiple machines/installations, or there's a tap on his computer (showing that there's not a simultaneous inbound connection that might be pulling the strings so to speak during activities that really require a human operator) then that sort of evidence can be used to paint a much more convincing picture imho.
So you assert that lowering returns while holding losses essentially constant has no negative effects on investment? You assert that individuals will always invest in the same instruments even when they can get almost the same return for a fraction of the risk? My example clearly demonstrates the flaw in your belief. Whether or not you believe that our CURRENT capital gains tax structure in our CURRENT economic environment makes sense is a different debate. It is undeniable though that capping returns (with taxes or whatever instrument you wish to use) has a profound effect on investment activity.
Obviously you haven't studied economics or finance with any real depth then. There are direct and well documented relationships between risk and (expected) return. Put simply, people will not take additional risk unless they are well compensated. The facts demonstrate this time and time again. What defines exactly how much extra return people need to justify additional "units" of risk is debated somewhat in the academic and financial communities (e.g., CAPM), but no one seriously denies this. Please study the Security Market Line or the CAPM model (a particular formula, even if somewhat debated). If you need some background, then read http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1941.pdf. Now you might try and argue that higher returns for the investor do not necessary mean higher value for society, but on the aggregate you'd be very much wrong; it's fundamental to pretty much any vision of free market theory. Society does not pay for what it does not want. Now maybe you might throw out the example cigarettes, drugs, or other vices, but these are very much debatable and they are exceptions to the rule.
Except that that same tax structure was also around to watch the stock market collapse. The stock market is subject to a lot of other external factors than just the tax regime. For instance, the growth of tech firms, the medias actions (hyping or promoting fear), improvements in efficiency (largely due to tech), international markets, and so on. As for your particular assertion that the 90s was somehow "free" from this relationship, I'd like to remind you that there was a peculiar irrationality about all too many players in the market at that point. When so many people behaved irrationally, by investing in stocks that could never return enough to justify their valuations (or even break even), how can you even begin to argue that they're rational enough to judge risk and return. The fact is that people and even markets can make mistakes, but they DO behave rationally on the aggregate over time. In other words, you still need to construct a legal and tax framework where rational people can benefit from their actions.
Deficits in and of themselves are a bad thing, but the fact is that our tax cuts have had a negligible impact on the current deficit. When the economy slumps to such a degree tax receipts WILL fall dramatically regardless (short of MASSIVE tax increases which we could not do).
Which was almost entirely irrelevant to what we were debating. What is your "e
Don't twist my words. I never said that actual taxes have a marginal rate of 75%, never mind capital gains. 75% was part of an example, as hypothetical as my 1 in 3 crapshoot. Neither tax structure nor investment structure is exactly like it, but it is nonetheless useful to illustrate a point. Furthermore, whether or not it is 75% is practically irrelevant to the example. Even 15% has a very drastic impact on the entire equation. Furthermore, you truly cannot say that 75% is entirely unrealistic. When you add up capital gains, local taxes, estate taxes, secondary income taxes, and so on, it can and DOES add up (yes, I know people in precisely this situation) to this amount.
As for your assertion that allowances for capital losses somehow restore balance to this system, you are ignoring the fact that the system doesn't do nearly enough to create a balance of any sort. While it is true that you can theoretically deduct your losses, you are limited to 3,000 dollars a year and those losses can ONLY be deducted against capital gains, not other taxes of any sort. This has a devastating impact in practice. Imagine for a second that you're a 60 something year old wealthy retired businessman. If you were to invest in my theoretical crapshoot, then you'd lose stastically in practice because a) you're unlikely to live far enough into the future and keep on investing to enjoy the future deductions on capital gains b) your money is essentially being withheld from you for an extended period of time (this has both real and human impacts)
Whether or not you think that taxing capital gains is ultimately necessary, my point is simple and undeniable: it DOES have a distortionary and undesirable effects on markets, namely it discourages investments into riskier assets (which are generally yield a higher return for society). In other words, it caps the upside far more than the tax system can possible reduce the downside (in both absolute and in human terms).
Your ad hominem argument that there are bad-rich people out there does nothing to demonstrate that the tax structure can and does hurt investment. The fact is that CEOs and investment bankers are a very small percentage of the wealthy, never mind the fact that MOST of them are pretty much above board anyways.
Firstly, investments of all sorts are generally considered to be assets, not just cash and gold.
Secondly, do you really honestly believe that the "rich" get richer by squirelling it all away under their beds or something? No, you lose money that way every year with inflation. Gold is generally a pretty poor performer and it has no concrete value (e.g., it is subject to the same laws of supply and demand that your house is) Likewise, if you put it into a standard savings account, you might as well be standing still.
The rich get richer by buying into higher risk investments, e.g., privately-held companies, publically held stocks, and loans. As a general rule, the higher the return available, the higher the risk. If you look carefully at the numbers, you will see that, with the exception of certain institutional investors, it is the rich that comprise MOST equity in privately held companies. Now you might argue that the rich can do this because they can better afford to take risks or that they can aggregate their risks so as to diminish the overall risk, but the fact remains that they perform a very useful function in society.
Do you really believe that when a person buys art (a very small percentage of any wealthy individuals income anyways) that it just sits in some hole in the ground? No, it gets transfered to another wealthy person who WILL almost certainly eventually spend it or hopefully to an artist or some agent thereof that directly promotes the arts--in either event, the money keeps on moving. What do you care if it passes through an art house first?
The stock market on the aggregate over the past century or two has averaged better than 12 percent return per year. While that may not sound like much to you, when you compound the returns over a period of time, it quickly adds up to a lot of money. In other words, the wealthy already have significant encouragement to invest. Putting a gun to their heads and saying that they MUST invest constantly or face losing it all would be silly and counter-productive. Don't forget that the rich must get rich somehow first. If the government starts drastically dictating how the money is to be allocated that it just one more reason NOT to make the effort in the first place.
I also find it highly ironic that you're arguing for taxes so as to spur the rich to invest. Many of these taxes on dividends and capital gains are what dissuades the rich from investing in some of highest risk investments. [Put in the simplest of terms: If you have a 1 in 3 shot of winning a pool and a 2 and 3 shot of losing every dollar you invest, say, 1m dollars, then that pool must be at least 3M dollars before any rational individual would even THINK about investmenting, else it'd be a net average loss. Let's imagine for most people that that one in 3 shot must offer at least 4M dollars. Now what happens when the government decides to take 75% of that money from you in the event that you do win? Woops, game over. This point is this: If you tax windfalls heavily and don't reimburse losses at the other end, then your tax will have distortionary and undesirable effects on the markets]
Btw, the rich also lost disproportionately more money when the stock market fell over the past couple of years. It's no coincidence.
How about the concept of privacy? Does the lack of existence of "privacy" in nature make it any less important or worthy of protection in our society? No.
I disagree. It is a very good term to describe a concept, a concept which happens to be very useful to group related instances of concepts together. While the body of laws that protect varying forms of intellectual property may be profoundly different, the underlying concept and the legal reasoning for protecting them is essentially the same. Just because some people misuse the term does not make it any less valid.
Where did I say that Open Source should never be used or that security is always critical? When it comes to my own personal security, I take a pretty relaxed approach because I don't believe that many people are interested in hacking me. What I was addressing is the notion that Open Source software automatically tends to be automatically secure by virtue of it being open for inspection. It is my experience that MOST open source software is LESS secure than their more popular proprietary counterparts in practice [this is not just a function of the vulnerabilties that exist or window of time before the first patch, but also the window of time till the patch can be installed by end users, the ease with which hackers can create exploits (easier w/ OSS), etc]. Yes, I do believe the Linux kernel, Apache, and a couple other packages are pretty secure as they are now because of their overwhelming popularity with developers. However, the truth is that a typical, say, linux installation uses hundreds of other lesser-known packages and may run a couple dozen services which receive NO inspection. If the total developer community doesn't really put forth the effort to make SURE the code is secure, then I'd far rather that code be closed than open.
As for OpenSSH or OpenSSL, I cannot comment on their particular status in detail because I haven't worked with them enough. It is a matter of relative risk. I suspect OpenSSH and OpenSSL are relatively secure because they are very popular with the developer community and, consequently, receive significant review (even if not by the greatest of experts)--so they unlikely to have such well known flaws. That doesn't mean though that the hundreds of applications that employ them are implemented in a secure way or that other aspects of those applications are secure (e.g., the SSL socket may be secure, but it doesn't much matter if some corny CGI that it's ultimately connection to isn't vulnerable to the most trivial of SQL injection).
Now I'm not going to argue that Microsoft or dozens of other corporate developers have been that security conscious either. Many of them have been too lax because they didn't fully realize that it could negatively impact their sales. I believe it is starting to dawn on them though. Contrary to the average slashdotter, I think they can achieve pretty good security by corporate decree in the coming years. Whereas I don't think this is likely in the open source community, particularly with most of these lesser applications, because so many of them are written on whim and put into production without anyone really vetting them out....the mantra that many eyes makes bugs shallow (whether they word it like this or not) lulls too many into a false sense of security. Just because it is open does not mean qualified eyes are REALLY on the code, but it is a sure thing that a hacker CAN read that same open code.
The only way that the argument for open source software security holds water is when its security is vigorously pursued by a very active developer community such that a hacker must be able to see and exploit before, at bare minimum, a handful of qualfied experts can detect, fix, and efficiently deploy patches to the more dilligent end users. In other words, it's a race against time and a numbers games in which the deck is hopefully stacked against the hacker. However, if that open source community cannot even be bothered to hunt, fix, and deploy patches for well known vulnerabilities, then this same openness makes it that much easier for the hacker.
Peter just demonstrated a case of this apathy. My gut tells me that this the rule, not the exception. The core linux kernel, apache, and perhaps a coupe dozen others are the few projects that can claim a truly active developer and security community. I, for one, wouldn't trust any of the other open source packages for any computers that I deemed critical insofar as security goes.
I don't believe it only took you even 30 minutes to install and configure everything start to finish. I'm not talking about badly about OpenBSD per se, but running a full blown OS, particularly one that isn't designed to be PnP (so to speak) in this sort of application is a suboptimal solution because it is total overkill for almost every home user that just needs NAT. Yes, I ran linux, ip chains, ip masq, etc a couple years ago to do the same thing, but I soon realized that the newer devices could do every bit as good of a job for my more practical needs (excluding the hacks to bridge networks and such), without the fan noise, without the hassle when I need to reconfigure, and for only 100 bucks. The time I spent tooling around my linux box easily exceeded 500 dollars worth of my time over the years; I cannot say the same for my cheap linksys solution and I haven't had any trouble with it, except for having to reboot it once every 6 months or so. As for the script kids, how does your openbsd box help in this regard? You obtain a new IP via dhcp? So can I with my linksys, but the average user doesn't even have to worry about this kind of specific targeted attack in the first place. If the concern is the worm du jour, then changing IPs does nothing.
You can argue to the contrary till you turn blue in the face, but I've known too many people over the years (even in the past year) that have been denied reasonable amounts of financial aid because of the inflexibility of the financial aid system. It is VERY formulaic. Yes, they will do some case by case analyzing of the numbers, but only if you meet certain criteria will they begin to get really flexible. A great many middle class families still fall between the cracks.
Note: I was not arguing that Princeton is extremely stuffy or snotty, but the very-much-upward demographics of the students is well known and undeniable. If most of your peers were truly middle class, then you truly were amongst a rare group there.
We'll simply have to agree to disagree here. I see the financial aid system as STILL being extremely flawed, recent measures are just band-aid measures, because they they fail to aim at the real problem for middle class families, the sky-rocketing cost of tuition and school related expenses. Can you honestly tell me that you did not see millions of dollars wasted every year on new facilities and programs at Princeton? Have you seen the new boat house? Do you know how many millions that cost to build (yes yes, I know most of the money will be said to have come from "other" sources, but that's a different argument)? Do you know how extra money it tacked onto the base tuition to cover the broken financial aid system costs? That extra 10K+ a year is a fatal blow to many middle class families that could otherwise afford tuition. Unfortunately very few of the poor, who easily show "need", can make meet the criteria of a school like Princeton especially, so what you're left with is a largely white, upper middle class, student body. It's no accident that Princeton is as homogeneous as it is.
As for the claim that these same private schools cannot be expected to parse the parents efforts, thrift, and what not, I say hogwash. They do it and similar things ALL the time during the admissions process. Flawed though it may be, at least it would be more fair than the overly formalized and unrealistic equations they use to compute financial aid "need".
I would be the first to argue that there is life outside of the Ivy Leagues. However, in the scope of this discussion, it is a copout to say that they can just go to state school. You can hardly say that your school has the best and the brightest students and/or applicants (or even anything approximating that) when you cut out such a large portion of students that could otherwise compete. When you demand that middle class families make huge sacrifices (if they're even lucky enough to have the option), just so their child can attend a good private school. You knock out many true middle class families, you limit the schools talent. You knock out the middle class, you limit social mobility. You prevent many of the brightest minds from recieving the opportunity to receive a truly rich education. Yes, many, even most, of the brightest and most capable people I know did not attend fancy private schools, but I'll also say that many of these same people, particularly those from less affluent backgrounds, suffer a handicap, despite their superior intelligence and abilities, because they were denied the kind of education that they could have recieved (them being who they are--not the avg student at so many of these schools today). For instance, I've seen on more than a couple occassions, the most gifted and hardest working employees being denied advancement to top management positions simply because they lack the minimum polish (as far as grammar, communication, etc go) that most Ivy league graduates receive traditionally (at least if they really want it). Is it still possible to succeed? Yes, but you have to work a whole lot harder than those who manage to coast through schools like Princeton.
Here's some math for you:
700K
- 300K (2 kids for 4 years at Princeton)
- 100K mortgage
- 100K (taxes, transaction costs, moving, etc)
----
200K dollars. Go buy a decent house in decent part of in Seattle for 200K dollars. Ok, the math there is a lot more complex than that, but the idea that that house makes them rich enough is really laughable. The simple fact of the matter is that, given the status quo at the time of the financial aid system, good private schools were not affordable for them. The parents could have sold the house, destroyed their lifestyle, and still not be guaranteed being able to afford 4 years of private school. (Yet if her father chose to rent a nice apt, drive a nice car...to have little net worth, financial aid wouldn't even be a question).
Where did I say that? Many people EARN more because they WORK harder. Many people of the SAME income are WEALTHIER (a different concept) because they choose NOT to spend; they choose to SAVE. Many people are more educated because choose to study longer and harder. There many be tons of exceptions to all of these, but that does not mean that you can conclude from any of that all or even most poor people are lazy. Nor does it necessarily mean that creating a financial aid system that levels these makes sense either. It particularly doesn't make sense to let spending run amok at these universities in the flawed belief that the financial aid system is even approximately "fair". Nor does it make sense to charge those who can barely cover their own costs an extra 10-15K a year to subsidize tuition of students that can't even afford 10K a year.
Well Princeton is one of the worst in that respect. Part of my problem is that they go about seeking diversity in the wrong way. They all too often seek out students that they can describe as African American whose experiences are often either that of an upper middle class person OR lower class (and ilprepared to compete in serious programs), but then effectively reject the many many more students, such as those of recent immigrants (many of whom have real stories to tell), between lack of consideration and lack of financial aid, even though they are very very capable of competing with those students. All too often they admit people that just can't cut it in a serious fields of study.
I've heard and I think it's a real mistake. Either the parents OR the students should at least pay something. Moderate student loans and work study programs are not overly onerous and they can go a long way to keep people honest, to make sure they really want to go there, etc. It shouldn't be viewed as an entitlement.
While I come from a family that was able to easily afford this kind of tuition 4 kids at top flight universities, I must say that this system is not even remotely fair and it is a real burden on more middle class families (including some of my friends and peers). Sure, if your parents are working near minimum wage jobs AND you meet their academic criteria (a rare group), then the system will normally cover all your expenses. However, if you are unfortunate enough to have more successful parents who spent and saved wisely, then you WILL be penalized. It is a perverse system because it penalizes thrift and rewards spending. For instance, one of my friend's parent bought a house about 30 years ago now in Seattle, while they otherwise lived very modestly, their relatively modest house appreciated in value to roughly 700K (from the 100K or so it cost before). The schools only needed to see the house to decline any substantial financial aid. The parents couldn't realistically sell short of moving to a very different part of town (not to mention leaving their friends, house, job, etc). My friend couldn't ask her parents to sell. The end result was that she was forced to attend a state school. This is perverse because her parents worked harder than most people, were more educated, etc. Meanwhile other (less capable) peers of mine, whose parents certainly earned more money than the friend I just described, but saved little, were able to enjoy substantial financial aid without their parents having to alter their lifestyle substantially.
I am sorry, but I tend to believe that we should reward hard work in this country. The system really damages that. The truth is these schools are WASTING a lot of money, some of the top schools are even charging more than they need to (but keep it high to keep their prestige and admissions in check), and then justifying it by saying that the financial aid system makes all right. Well, it doesn't. The system sucks for a lot of people. If you're rich, it's not too bad. If you're poor and you're fortunate enough to be admitted, then you're set (but also quite rare). I don't even consider myself much of a social crusader, but I truly consider it regressive, even if the pretense is "progressive". Those 2nd and 3rd generation families, whose families otherwise moved quickly up the social ranks hit an unnecessarily steep wall when it comes to entering the elite schools.
Take a look at a school like Princeton some time (if that's where you're going). Almost all the students are white and upper middle class or higher and most frankly aren't that impressive academically or otherwise. Sure, most students will have a modicum of intelligence, but more importantly they know how to work the system. If you truly leveled the playing fields economically, you'd still see a large percentage coming from more affluent families (because they are most likely to have benefited from superior educations and may even be a little smarter on average), but I assure you that you'd see a lot more kids from blue collar and clerical backgrounds. This is really not a system the delivers "fairness" OR the most capable students (because it cuts out a large percentage of students, those somewhere between rich and poor).
Real socio-economic advancement is happening, by and large, by bypassing these elite institutions entirely, by attending lesser schools (or at least less recognized ones), but nonetheless succeeding in fields that reward true hard work, skill, intelligence, and risk taking behavior (e.g., business, engineering, etc). It doesn't have to be that way and it has gotten dramatically worse over the past decade or two as tuition has climbed...
Signed,
A person who has little direct cause for complaint.
Yes, I do. I've held shares in companies that have been victims of these lawsuits and have known management at more than a few that have fallen victim to this due to no fault of their own. One of my relatives is also a justice on DE's Supreme Court which sees the majority of these lawsuits. I studied finance. My parents have taken a number of companies public. And so on. I am informed. They simply should not exist, even where fraud is documented, there is just no excuse for transfering wealth from one shareholder to the other.
I simply can't agree to that because I don't think it's remotely reasonable. I'm not arguing that the shareholders should be free from any sort of litigation because they can enjoy the fruits of certain criminal behavior. For instance, if the company defrauds customers or pollutes the environment, then you can make a good case that the shareholders were enriched by the crime and so should be held liable [although I do have some reservations about abuses here too]. However, there is world of difference between wealth being effectively transfered from shareholders to OUTSIDE parties (e.g., customers, government, etc) and wealth being transfered from all current shareholdes to (what is typically a MINORITY) of (ex) shareholders. It is disingenious to assert that the current shareholders were beneficeries of fraud any more than the alleged victims. They're both shareholders in the EXACT SAME BOAT and those victims could have held onto their shares if they felt it was worth more. There is no, even remotely plausible, rationale that I can concieve of to justify this. While you might be able to argue "caveat emptor" with any equity, regardless of the reasons for the caveat, this is ONLY burden on those who get defrauded. It's not making money back on the aggregate and it's not penalizing wrong doers. It's like saying OK, we've got 100 dollars to split 10 ways, there's less money there then I hoped, and even though you had no more control or ability than I, I want more than my fairshare, god dammit, whatever the cost, and I don't even care if 40 of those dollars is lost from the pool in the process. Does this do ANYTHING to control fraud? No. Does this penalize wrong doers? No. Does this truly do anything to compensate the wronged on average? No. The system is banking on a unpredictable legal system for a lottery reward system. If you're the victim of fraud, in fact, you're worse off under this system because money is LOST on the aggregate from the pool and the market KNOWS this, so your stock is going to fall that much further. It's worse than a zero sum game. Only those that "win" the lottery can be said to have benefited, but we all know that the lottery is a losing proposition.
Most of these lawsuits have NOTHING to do with fraud or criminal behavior.
I would argue that in any sort of technical case, as most of these lawsuits really are, that juries are completely incapable of assessing fault or damages. If you're going to have a jury that assesses fault and damages essentially at random, then you're better off not having one at all. If you're going to have a jury, then it SHOULD be a more educated one that is capable of handling these matters. Yes, all processes involving humans are going to have some flaws, but some systems are so flawed that we must dispense of them entirely.
Yes, to a certain point, they SHOULD just suffer. Unless management is truly negligent or behaves criminally/unethically, the shareholders should not expect this sort of compensation, and even then that should come out of management's (or the boards) pocket, not the shareholders. You assume certain risks when you take an equity position in a company. You even assume the risk of management making mistakes--that is life and that is an explicit function of taking an equity position. It is not right, fair, or sensible to expect other shareholders to pay you because you invested at the wrong time. It may not have been your fault, you may not have been able to forsee, but, then in that case, nor was it the present shareholders fault either.
Even in the case of an Enron, where "the company" behaved in an unquestionably unethical and criminal manner, it does not make sense to transfer funds from current shareholders to past ones. It was management that lied, not the shareholders. If you are claiming you were injured as a shareholder and had no ability to forsee the events that unfolded, then how could you penalize the other shareholders? This menality over amplifies every problem (and creates MANY that simply do not exist). It effectively forces people to join the class action suits for fear of being cut out. It's just plain idiotic. It's particularly bad in our current legal system when the juries cannot reasonably be expected to know what was reasonable, prudent, or even ethical. Sure, in the case of Enron, you have some rather black and white circumstances, but that's a very small part of these lawsuits. These extreme cases are particularly distorting because a) they are VERY rare b) they, the Enrons, are not the target of big attention because their pockets are generally very shallow by the time a lawsuit is possible c) the legal system already provides criminal and civil penalties in the cases where management misbehaves to this extent. The truth is that 99% of the money comes from some of the biggest, most legit companies, with some of the most minor (or even non-existant) infractions because that's where the lawyers can make their money best.
Because the "corporate" world is not the one paying here, the shareholders are. Because THESE particular class of lawyers (I know and call many lawyers friends) are by and large a drain on the system and 99% of their cases should have never been filed. Because the instrument to extract awards is so inaccurate and incapable of awarding a proper and realistic amounts in most of these cases. Because these cases are often what push companies over the edge and cause employees to lose their jobs. An Enron may never recover, but a company that loses 10m in sales can likely recover on its own--unless the equity markets are too afraid to reinvest with a potential 5b dollar judgement waiting in the winds. It amplifies and distorts. Period.
There is nothing "sort of" about it. I never said that the shareholders stand personally liable, BUT they do stand to lose every last cent that they invested. That is a huge deal. Saying that "the company pays" is very misleading because all of that money is coming from CURRENT shareholders. There is no other "company" that foots the bill here (unless you include the limited extent that creditors and the average employee lose out in some of these cases--neither deserve that anymore).
For instance, there have been a number of shareholder lawsuits that have sued the corporation because (they allege) management didn't warn them that some specific bad shit could happen in their 10Q and they lost money when the stock fell as a result. The end result: a net transfer of wealth from current shareholders to those few past (stupid/greedy) shareholders. Furthermore, it's not just a zero sum game (even if all parties are presumably the same), because a very large percentage of that is in legal fees (not to mention bad press, adverse market reaction, etc) between the contingency fees, defense, etc--the shareholder pays for it all). It just does not make sense and it severely distorts the market for these troubled companies.
Btw, there is not much difference between a public and privately held corporation as far as shareholder liability is concerned. In fact, unless the shareholder is an officer of the company or is a member of the board, then there is no difference--it's just a little more likely in a private corporation.
First and foremost, it's a transfer of wealth from one shareholder group to another, plain and simple. Very rarely is that money paid by management as individuals; almost all of it comes out of the shareholders pockets. Put differently, you're punishing people who likely had no ability to influence the outcome of the alleged event, and may not even have been invested at that time. Even after an Enron has been "purged" of the guilty, who is going to invest in that company with all the risk associated with a shareholder lawsuit? You're compounding shareholder trouble. Second, many of these claims are dubious at best, but because of the technical nature of accounting and the typical jury pools lack of experience, the outcome is far from certain even when the managements innocence is well understood by the financial community. The result is that many companies settle because that one in 500 chance of a 1b dollar verdict is too much to handle. The lawyers can and do get rich without a single guilty verdict--I know of some particularly egregious cases from first hand experience.
Do not confuse reproduction and distribution with actual publishing and promotion. They are two different concepts. While it is true that that any idiot that can pony up a few dollars each month can POTENTIALLY reach every individual with internet access, that does not cover the costs necessary to ACTUALLY get copy in front of people's faces (e.g., marketing) AND PAY for the costs of producing the work in the first place. The fact is that while there are billions of BLOGs out there, the overwhelming majority of Americans still get their news from other sources be it online in the form of CNN.com, TV, or News--it's all derived from but a couple original newsources and money is kicked up the chain. You can argue that it's luck. You can argue that said consumers are foolish. You can argue whatever you want, but at the end of the day, the content that consumers prefer and (ultimately) pay for DOES revolve around copyright.
If you really believe that "publishing" (in your simplistic sense of the word) is so simple these days, then why is it that there are so few authors that are actually doing just this, by going online, cutting out the middlemen, lowering costs, and what have you? There are probably hundreds or thousands of good authors that are currently languishing without publishing contracts. Why don't we see handfuls of authors producing quality work and living off their online publishing? [There is a world of difference between someone's musings on a blog and most published work] Whey don't we see the majority of popular works "published" in this fashion? I'll tell you why, because it fundamentally rests on copyright. The authors depend on publishers to promote their works, to find them shelfspace. The publishers, in turn, necessarily have to raise prices to cover their costs (to aggregate risk), which relies heavily on copyright.
The fact is that publishing has been quite cheap for decades--hardly at a point where only a few publishers can afford to enter the business. Neither the cost of the printing presses nor the cost of the material is the issue. Shelf space IS the driving force. Very few bookstores or retail chains (e.g., grocery stores) are going to put no-name publishers on their shelves because consumers are unlikely to buy and because they'll ultimately lose money on it. The situation is not so different today. Sure, the internet may have created the first venue for cheap musings and near-real time information, but for more substantial works (e.g., novels, reference materials, etc), the formula is still much the same as it has always been.
If anything COPYRIGHT is more relevent than it has ever been because it is EASIER to violate while its value has only grown (compare the # of volume and variety of books published today compared to 50, 100, 200 years ago). Violating copyright is more akin to short-circuiting than anything else...