1) What important corporate secrets does root/administrator on a desktop have anyway? 2) Why are you letting people you can't trust have access to secrets? You hired them because they can't read/write or remember stuff or think out of the box?
You can hire "cannonfodder", but you sure don't give them access to important stuff.
Most companies don't really care about security or know anything about it. They just say they do. They hire new people and near immediately put them in charge of important data (whether encrypted or not, you don't do that if you care). Or they even let contractors have access to it.
p.s. Not that it really matters but just for your information, with physical access people can easily get root on most linux distros (same for administrator on windows), and there are ways to lock down windows (2k/xp and later) - google for "group policy". In fact it's easier to set policies on windows than it is for most of the Linux distros.
Uh, like I said: "If you're going to allow users to have usb music players and camera phones you just have to assume they can sneak stuff out. Just set your policies and processes accordingly."
If you're afraid of corporate spies, there are things you can do. Whether or not you use windows is irrelevant.
While most organizations are clueless and let just about anybody access to the "family jewels" (noobs/temps/outsourcees/contractors get access to backup tapes etc), not all are.
If you're a spy, you'd care about being detected before you manage to get useful data. And I know some spies actually do care about having their cover blown even AFTER they get useful data.
Like I said in my previous post, you can always plant fake secrets. Rumour has it that the bad capacitor problem was because a Japanese company knew someone was trying to copy their formula and so they let them copy an incomplete formula, and the rest is history...
Sure most people are stupid, but you can't assume all are.
In other countries it's usually because the water _released_ will be too hot. I bet the reactors could take water in as long as it's liquid, release steam and not blow up, but the stuff in the river won't be happy.
90F is pretty cold compared to the temperatures the turbines run at, not even comparing the reactor core. I'd thought the safety margins would be higher.
If the river has too little water, then it's a bigger problem.
If the IT admins really want to make their life easy, why don't they just use one of those hardware solutions where if you reboot the PC (or press some button while booting) the PC gets restored to a known state (like a vmware "revert to snapshot"), and then have networked file servers for students to store some of their permanent _uni/college_ related stuff on. If the IT staff aren't totally lazy they might even back up the student's network stuff regularly (haha).
Basically the hardware card diverts all disk writes to some other location and subsequent reads are read from the new location until the system is "reverted", in which case everything appears back to the original state.
This sort of thing is done in some cybercafes- and you can even reboot the machine remotely to revert it (if it's not totally messed up;) ).
If a student wants to start from a known state he/she can just reboot the PC, or use their laptop.
Then additionally require the students not to tamper with the uni's "default" image (which would typically involve opening up the PC, and mucking about to bypass the hardware thingy). Along with "no unauthorized access to other people's accounts and machines" that should be quite a reasonable policy and I doubt it would really trouble students doing legitimate stuff.
I'd even do this in a corporate environment if I were in charge of IT, but with a few more "corporate style" policies.
You can get sacked for breaking policy. Policies suitable for companies are often inappropriate for universities or colleges.
I don't know why you're even talking about windows. It's not even relevant.
Plus it's as easy to bypass lockdown on default installs of typical Linux distros as it is for default installs of Windows. With the distros you usually get access to stuff like scp, perl, crypto and lots of other fun stuff preinstalled for you.
If you're going to allow users to have usb music players and camera phones you just have to assume they can sneak stuff out. Just set your policies and processes accordingly.
olive oil, wine = good stuff, even in biblical times:). Sometimes if I'm starting to get a bit of sore throat I gargle with extra virgin olive oil (maybe swallow a bit to reach the lower portions:p ), and the next day I'm ok. Maybe it's psychosomatic/placebo effect, but I bet it's safer and healthier than swallowing a bit of mouthwash.
Sometimes I prefer a bit of whiskey or vodka with meals instead of wine. In that case the 40% alcohol content is likely to kill stuff even when diluted by the other stuff in the stomach. Not as healthy as wine I suppose, but probably still healthier than beer (which I find too fizzy).
1) Everyone makes a copy when they read that newspaper. Some forget most of it quickly, but some remember more and for longer.
2) In the future it will be technically possible to safely give most people photographic/videographic memory (and allow them to communicate wirelessl The technology is already there, just not safe, convenient/acceptable or good enough to sell. People already use their camera phones to record pictures/videos/sounds of stuff for recall and communication. Monkeys and humans can already control devices with their thoughts using direct brain connections. The blind can already see in low res.
3) What people do now determines whether people in the future have to keep paying just to recall stuff or to memorize stuff, or whether it will be legally/politically possible to have such abilities in the first place (sorry you only qualify for brain augmentation if you are a certified retard or have Alzheimer's).
4) Think a bit longer term, think a bit more, and act now while you can do so for free.
"A penny for your thoughts? The **AA might say it's theirs and ask for more".
Diebold already made a "computer assisted voting" system.
That's what people are complaining about;).
Seriously though, technically it's an easy problem to solve - the USA has plenty of smart people who can build practical solutions.
The real problem is the US Gov would prefer to be the one to decide who gets to be the next US Gov and do whatever it takes, just like they prefer to decide who gets to be the next Iraqi Gov.
Speaking of lightning, it can be an issue outdoors if the laser somehow ionizes a path from the nearest thundercloud to close to where you're standing;).
Actually I disagree "slightly". I see power and flexibility as related.
You can have power, flexibility and even ease of use.
The trick is to pick the right defaults. It's definitely not always easy for the designer.
What put me off from Java when it first came out was stuff like:
Method to find the number of rows returned from an SQL query - go to the last row, get row num. Lots of stuff like that.
Basically a lot of the libraries felt like they were written by someone who was told by someone else to write it because it was in the requirements list. Not written by someone who was going to use it to make his life easier.
My colleagues then who had to use java were regularly encountering things like that. I was doing perl at that time, and I was quite surprised at how hard it was for my colleagues to do simple stuff in java. Maybe they sucked, but we searched for better ways (online etc), there often were no better ways.
Well maybe it makes the java programmers feel like they've done a lot of great work at the end of the day, and that they've earned their salary;).
Heh, but the great thing is despite all of the great stuff that's happening in US health care, it's still more expensive than in countries with better health care in Europe!
Well it does work. Alcohol kills lots of stuff (including some users;) ).
In some countries you should probably use beer or some other alcoholic beverage for washing your toothbrush and rinsing your mouth and when brushing your teeth.
You don't want to use the local tap "water" for that. You definitely know when the tap water isn't that "clean" when it's got little critters in it that move about...
"It's possible that your immune system used to do a better job of fighting the virus off before you developed noticeable symptoms, but you certainly weren't immune"
Seriously, what's the difference? If say his system fights the virus off in 5 minutes vs "real immunity"?
Sure. The Government could grant you a limited license. Just like in other monopolies. Fair use;).
I believe in most countries you are "licensed" to use "reasonable" violence in self defense, but that license does not extend to performing ex-judiciary punishments. AFAIK even cops aren't allowed to decide and perform violent punishments (just decide levels of civil fines;) ) - they are licensed to use "reasonable" violence in defense, and in arresting suspects, they are not allowed to execute a known murderer after catching him, even if there's a death penalty for murder. The military is also similarly restrained.
If it not unusual for civilians, cops or soldiers to execute/punish people without due process, the country is screwed up. BTW I doubt it's a good idea to allow civilians to shoot people in order to perform "citizen arrests".
I hope you see how a Gov could maintain a monopoly and still allow people to perform violence, or fail to maintain it, and the big difference it makes.
Where I live (Malaysia), the Gov has screwed up badly already - you regularly hear of cases where people beat up alleged wrongdoers and the police don't do anything about it - I did write to the papers about it, and my letter did get published in one, but still the Gov is ignoring the problem.
Mobs often deal out unjust punishments (not befitting the crime), and sometimes not even the "guilty" person either ( some mobs have beaten up _passengers_ of the alleged guilty driver in road accidents).
No way would I want a proliferation of guns here. Most people here can't even handle cars properly or responsibly.
The USA is different - guns are everywhere already, you have to deal with what you have.
What I also find lacking here is a "Standard Operating Procedure" for interaction between cops and civilians, and even civilians vs civilians in "critical situations". Even if both parties know their rights and the laws (hah), there appears to be no "standard process" to reduce ambiguities, misunderstandings, and the potential for unnecessary unpleasantness or "escalation".
Experienced experts for both sides should draft out an SOP/flowchart. So if a cop challenges you, he/you can quickly indicate that "Set A", "Set B", "Custom set" or "I want my lawyer;)" is being performed.
After all, what happens if a nonuniformed cop needs to challenge a civilian? Can he just flash a badge? Anyone can flash a fake badge, so what next? In places where lethal weapons are legal and common, I suggest it is even more important to have standard procedures for interaction which are reasonable and safe for both law abiding citizens and cops. Sure the procedures can't cover all cases and will fail in some, but I claim it will be better than having people make it up along the way.
Basically "I don't believe you're a cop, where's your uniform" shouldn't lead to "go ahead make my day". Or someone getting shot 40 times by cops, just because he reached for his ID when doh the cops asked for his ID...
Yeah, and when you do get a dictionary type attack on your ssh running on nonstandard ports, it's fair to treat it as a different scenario from the usual port 22 worms.
It's more worth setting an "alarm" for such a situation than for the port 22 stuff.
On my personal server I just run my ssh server on a different port. One that's not likely for trojans or other stuff to scan.
Others can go say "bah security by obscurity" for all they like, I think they're mostly stupid/ignorant anyway;).
Actually what I do is run the ssh server on 127.x.y.z:someport and internal.ip:someport.
Then I have the firewall redirect all accesses to external.ip:extport to 127.x.y.z:someport.
That way even if the firewall rules aren't present (or messed up), it's likely that people outside still can't ssh in.
If you're paranoid you can skip having sshd listen on internal.ip:someport and do the firewall thingy for internals as well. But you better be careful;).
That said, no big deal for me even if i mess up the rules since the actual exposed machine is a virtual machine and I can still vmware console to it:).
To clarify: I was saying that any government that wants to stay in power should do that. Whether the government should stay in power or not is a different matter - that's why I said evil/legit gov.
If you're supposedly the gov and people randomly got killed all the time by _random_ other people, you've actually already lost power - you're not the only one killing with impunity. And people will get pissed off and start figuring they have nothing to lose and consider attacking you and/or seizing power.
As for whether it is right to revolt violently, I'll give you another logical and true statement:
If you want to be the "good guy" you have to be VERY careful = whether you engage in a violent revolution or even just suggest it.
Because if stuff goes awry, the odds of the group most capable AND willing to exert the most violence to rise to the top become very high. That group will not necessarily be your group or the good guys. In fact most often it will be the most powerful bad guys. It may be even still be your group, but turns out you are dead and the rest of your group isn't quite as good as you thought;).
Don't believe me? Take Karl Marx and Communism as an example. By making violence a part of the "Implementation Plan" for Communism, guess who tended to rise to the top? Just look at who rose to the top in China and USSR in the various revolutions.
The stupid defenders of communism keep saying "ah but China/USSR/etc is not true communism". Of course it's not true communism - that sort of implementation plan works better for creating a Dictatorship than Communism!
After those "Great Leap Forwards", the citizens had to wait for the dictators to die[1]/screw up and lose power, and then wait for bureaucrats who are less violent to get into power.
Like it or not, the USA got lucky/blessed. It actually had the good guys seizing power and then voluntarily splitting up the power and giving it out safely. While violence was a necessary part of their plan it was not the defining bit of their plan. Think about it.
The USA already has a form of democracy. If people think the masses of people can't vote properly with ballot boxes, or participate by running for elections etc, what makes people think they can vote properly with bullets?
IMO you should reserve the violent stuff for when _despite_ all other _nonviolent_ _attempted_ methods the situation ends up so bad that even if you screw up the violent plan the situation doesn't really end up much worse. I personally don't think I'll be very good at it, so I might as well not try.
[1] Careful when you wish for AIs and/or much longer human lifespans- while eventually even AIs will die that might take a lot longer than 120 years.
Thanks for the Apple II! I really liked the manuals too. Thanks to the well written manuals I learnt 6502 machine code and basic from them when I was 8. OK so my parents got me an apple 2 clone first, but they did get me a IIGS later on.
Anyway, the self sacrifice stuff is overrated. The helping others bit is good. While the second often requires the first, that's not always true. If everyone went around helping others the world would be a better place, but I'm not so sure the same applies if everyone went around self-sacrificing...
With regards to the house stuff, I figure since you're reasonably smart and can think "out of the box", nothing wrong with you doing the thinking, researching and experimentation even if it uses more energy and resources, especially since you're doing it with your own money.
Leave the not so smart ones to buy/use existing already built efficient houses, after all they are unlikely to come up with something better.
While the world has got X resources, letting you use a bit more than the rest (that you've acquired legally and reasonably ethically) to potentially figure out new stuff doesn't seem a bad thing to me. That's the principle of investing in R&D.
Anyway I bet you'd be using less energy than shipping a single M1 Abrams tank to Iraq and keeping it active there.
p.s. As for those silly complaints about Al Gore - he's a politician, he can't live in a two person hole in the ground - he's got to throw parties, entertain heads of state and all that stuff. He still needs a bigger than average house whether he pays for it or the taxpayers pay for it (and it belongs to the country).
It's civilized when you go through the legal system which then gets the designated men with guns (cops/military) to do it. It's not civilized when you go get your guns and do it yourself without regards to the law. That's vigilantism or mob violence.
Civilized: voters elect a government, which makes the laws and decides who enforces the laws. Uncivilized: You shoot someone because you don't like what he did or just don't like his face/affiliation.
It's like players/fighters agreeing to have someone to referee over them and to play/fight by certain rules. Then even if it's a fight you can then have a good _clean_ "fight", and it's still considered civilized (you could still have a dirty fight - ear biting etc, but that's where the rules for infringement come in).
A country goes to crap pretty quickly if too many people started doing DIY "law" enforcement.
It's recommended to have early domestication of juvenile humans, and proper training/education/brainwashing of them. Otherwise the **AA, MTV, Hollywood etc will be doing it instead.
Get a clue. ALL governments (whether legitimately elected ones or even evil dictatorships) should enforce a strict monopoly on violence - no one else allowed to shoot people except the government. Whether you're the Gov of Switzerland or Saddam, that's how you keep order in a country AND stop others from usurping your authority - if you allow a mob leader to go about bashing others, he might gain power and kick you out next.
The justice system decides who should be punished. The cops/military are to come in whenever the justice system gets ignored.
With your suggested "abolition of the civil justice system" it'll be "winner is the one left alive with the most after the civil war".
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Like I said : what difference does it make?
1) What important corporate secrets does root/administrator on a desktop have anyway?
2) Why are you letting people you can't trust have access to secrets? You hired them because they can't read/write or remember stuff or think out of the box?
You can hire "cannonfodder", but you sure don't give them access to important stuff.
Most companies don't really care about security or know anything about it. They just say they do. They hire new people and near immediately put them in charge of important data (whether encrypted or not, you don't do that if you care). Or they even let contractors have access to it.
p.s. Not that it really matters but just for your information, with physical access people can easily get root on most linux distros (same for administrator on windows), and there are ways to lock down windows (2k/xp and later) - google for "group policy". In fact it's easier to set policies on windows than it is for most of the Linux distros.
Uh, like I said: "If you're going to allow users to have usb music players and camera phones you just have to assume they can sneak stuff out. Just set your policies and processes accordingly."
If you're afraid of corporate spies, there are things you can do. Whether or not you use windows is irrelevant.
While most organizations are clueless and let just about anybody access to the "family jewels" (noobs/temps/outsourcees/contractors get access to backup tapes etc), not all are.
If you're a spy, you'd care about being detected before you manage to get useful data. And I know some spies actually do care about having their cover blown even AFTER they get useful data.
Like I said in my previous post, you can always plant fake secrets. Rumour has it that the bad capacitor problem was because a Japanese company knew someone was trying to copy their formula and so they let them copy an incomplete formula, and the rest is history...
Sure most people are stupid, but you can't assume all are.
Sounds strange to me.
In other countries it's usually because the water _released_ will be too hot. I bet the reactors could take water in as long as it's liquid, release steam and not blow up, but the stuff in the river won't be happy.
90F is pretty cold compared to the temperatures the turbines run at, not even comparing the reactor core. I'd thought the safety margins would be higher.
If the river has too little water, then it's a bigger problem.
Sounds stupid to me.
;) ).
If the IT admins really want to make their life easy, why don't they just use one of those hardware solutions where if you reboot the PC (or press some button while booting) the PC gets restored to a known state (like a vmware "revert to snapshot"), and then have networked file servers for students to store some of their permanent _uni/college_ related stuff on. If the IT staff aren't totally lazy they might even back up the student's network stuff regularly (haha).
Basically the hardware card diverts all disk writes to some other location and subsequent reads are read from the new location until the system is "reverted", in which case everything appears back to the original state.
This sort of thing is done in some cybercafes- and you can even reboot the machine remotely to revert it (if it's not totally messed up
If a student wants to start from a known state he/she can just reboot the PC, or use their laptop.
Then additionally require the students not to tamper with the uni's "default" image (which would typically involve opening up the PC, and mucking about to bypass the hardware thingy). Along with "no unauthorized access to other people's accounts and machines" that should be quite a reasonable policy and I doubt it would really trouble students doing legitimate stuff.
I'd even do this in a corporate environment if I were in charge of IT, but with a few more "corporate style" policies.
You can get sacked for breaking policy. Policies suitable for companies are often inappropriate for universities or colleges.
I don't know why you're even talking about windows. It's not even relevant.
Plus it's as easy to bypass lockdown on default installs of typical Linux distros as it is for default installs of Windows. With the distros you usually get access to stuff like scp, perl, crypto and lots of other fun stuff preinstalled for you.
If you're going to allow users to have usb music players and camera phones you just have to assume they can sneak stuff out. Just set your policies and processes accordingly.
Plant decoy data if you have to.
olive oil, wine = good stuff, even in biblical times :). Sometimes if I'm starting to get a bit of sore throat I gargle with extra virgin olive oil (maybe swallow a bit to reach the lower portions :p ), and the next day I'm ok. Maybe it's psychosomatic/placebo effect, but I bet it's safer and healthier than swallowing a bit of mouthwash.
Sometimes I prefer a bit of whiskey or vodka with meals instead of wine. In that case the 40% alcohol content is likely to kill stuff even when diluted by the other stuff in the stomach. Not as healthy as wine I suppose, but probably still healthier than beer (which I find too fizzy).
Same reason why they are interested in Linux, Java etc.
The more choices the customer gets the more IBM consultants/services/support the customer is likely to want/need.
1) Everyone makes a copy when they read that newspaper. Some forget most of it quickly, but some remember more and for longer.
2) In the future it will be technically possible to safely give most people photographic/videographic memory (and allow them to communicate wirelessl The technology is already there, just not safe, convenient/acceptable or good enough to sell. People already use their camera phones to record pictures/videos/sounds of stuff for recall and communication. Monkeys and humans can already control devices with their thoughts using direct brain connections. The blind can already see in low res.
3) What people do now determines whether people in the future have to keep paying just to recall stuff or to memorize stuff, or whether it will be legally/politically possible to have such abilities in the first place (sorry you only qualify for brain augmentation if you are a certified retard or have Alzheimer's).
4) Think a bit longer term, think a bit more, and act now while you can do so for free.
"A penny for your thoughts? The **AA might say it's theirs and ask for more".
Diebold already made a "computer assisted voting" system.
;).
That's what people are complaining about
Seriously though, technically it's an easy problem to solve - the USA has plenty of smart people who can build practical solutions.
The real problem is the US Gov would prefer to be the one to decide who gets to be the next US Gov and do whatever it takes, just like they prefer to decide who gets to be the next Iraqi Gov.
Speaking of lightning, it can be an issue outdoors if the laser somehow ionizes a path from the nearest thundercloud to close to where you're standing ;).
Actually I disagree "slightly". I see power and flexibility as related.
;).
You can have power, flexibility and even ease of use.
The trick is to pick the right defaults. It's definitely not always easy for the designer.
What put me off from Java when it first came out was stuff like:
Method to find the number of rows returned from an SQL query - go to the last row, get row num. Lots of stuff like that.
Basically a lot of the libraries felt like they were written by someone who was told by someone else to write it because it was in the requirements list. Not written by someone who was going to use it to make his life easier.
My colleagues then who had to use java were regularly encountering things like that. I was doing perl at that time, and I was quite surprised at how hard it was for my colleagues to do simple stuff in java. Maybe they sucked, but we searched for better ways (online etc), there often were no better ways.
Well maybe it makes the java programmers feel like they've done a lot of great work at the end of the day, and that they've earned their salary
Heh, but the great thing is despite all of the great stuff that's happening in US health care, it's still more expensive than in countries with better health care in Europe!
Well darwinists might agree unless it was an adopted son. ;).
I believe that already happens. After the fake bosses go to jail, extra money is sent to their families while they do the time.
Only can stop this if you can catch them and keep catching them regularly- that makes it too expensive to maintain.
Well it does work. Alcohol kills lots of stuff (including some users ;) ).
In some countries you should probably use beer or some other alcoholic beverage for washing your toothbrush and rinsing your mouth and when brushing your teeth.
You don't want to use the local tap "water" for that. You definitely know when the tap water isn't that "clean" when it's got little critters in it that move about...
"It's possible that your immune system used to do a better job of fighting the virus off before you developed noticeable symptoms, but you certainly weren't immune"
;).
Seriously, what's the difference? If say his system fights the virus off in 5 minutes vs "real immunity"?
Maybe he is a mutant
I find it funny/scary that the XML config files are often larger than fairly complex programs written in other languages ;).
Sure. The Government could grant you a limited license. Just like in other monopolies. Fair use ;).
;) ) - they are licensed to use "reasonable" violence in defense, and in arresting suspects, they are not allowed to execute a known murderer after catching him, even if there's a death penalty for murder. The military is also similarly restrained.
;)" is being performed.
I believe in most countries you are "licensed" to use "reasonable" violence in self defense, but that license does not extend to performing ex-judiciary punishments. AFAIK even cops aren't allowed to decide and perform violent punishments (just decide levels of civil fines
If it not unusual for civilians, cops or soldiers to execute/punish people without due process, the country is screwed up. BTW I doubt it's a good idea to allow civilians to shoot people in order to perform "citizen arrests".
I hope you see how a Gov could maintain a monopoly and still allow people to perform violence, or fail to maintain it, and the big difference it makes.
Where I live (Malaysia), the Gov has screwed up badly already - you regularly hear of cases where people beat up alleged wrongdoers and the police don't do anything about it - I did write to the papers about it, and my letter did get published in one, but still the Gov is ignoring the problem.
Mobs often deal out unjust punishments (not befitting the crime), and sometimes not even the "guilty" person either ( some mobs have beaten up _passengers_ of the alleged guilty driver in road accidents).
No way would I want a proliferation of guns here. Most people here can't even handle cars properly or responsibly.
The USA is different - guns are everywhere already, you have to deal with what you have.
What I also find lacking here is a "Standard Operating Procedure" for interaction between cops and civilians, and even civilians vs civilians in "critical situations".
Even if both parties know their rights and the laws (hah), there appears to be no "standard process" to reduce ambiguities, misunderstandings, and the potential for unnecessary unpleasantness or "escalation".
Experienced experts for both sides should draft out an SOP/flowchart. So if a cop challenges you, he/you can quickly indicate that "Set A", "Set B", "Custom set" or "I want my lawyer
After all, what happens if a nonuniformed cop needs to challenge a civilian? Can he just flash a badge? Anyone can flash a fake badge, so what next? In places where lethal weapons are legal and common, I suggest it is even more important to have standard procedures for interaction which are reasonable and safe for both law abiding citizens and cops. Sure the procedures can't cover all cases and will fail in some, but I claim it will be better than having people make it up along the way.
Basically "I don't believe you're a cop, where's your uniform" shouldn't lead to "go ahead make my day". Or someone getting shot 40 times by cops, just because he reached for his ID when doh the cops asked for his ID...
Yeah, and when you do get a dictionary type attack on your ssh running on nonstandard ports, it's fair to treat it as a different scenario from the usual port 22 worms.
It's more worth setting an "alarm" for such a situation than for the port 22 stuff.
On my personal server I just run my ssh server on a different port. One that's not likely for trojans or other stuff to scan.
;).
;).
:).
Others can go say "bah security by obscurity" for all they like, I think they're mostly stupid/ignorant anyway
Actually what I do is run the ssh server on 127.x.y.z:someport and internal.ip:someport.
Then I have the firewall redirect all accesses to external.ip:extport to 127.x.y.z:someport.
That way even if the firewall rules aren't present (or messed up), it's likely that people outside still can't ssh in.
If you're paranoid you can skip having sshd listen on internal.ip:someport and do the firewall thingy for internals as well. But you better be careful
That said, no big deal for me even if i mess up the rules since the actual exposed machine is a virtual machine and I can still vmware console to it
But if Novell goes belly up and gets taken over by say Microsoft.
The new management is bound by the legal contracts Novell made, but are they still bound by that promise?
To clarify: I was saying that any government that wants to stay in power should do that. Whether the government should stay in power or not is a different matter - that's why I said evil/legit gov.
;).
If you're supposedly the gov and people randomly got killed all the time by _random_ other people, you've actually already lost power - you're not the only one killing with impunity. And people will get pissed off and start figuring they have nothing to lose and consider attacking you and/or seizing power.
As for whether it is right to revolt violently, I'll give you another logical and true statement:
If you want to be the "good guy" you have to be VERY careful = whether you engage in a violent revolution or even just suggest it.
Because if stuff goes awry, the odds of the group most capable AND willing to exert the most violence to rise to the top become very high. That group will not necessarily be your group or the good guys. In fact most often it will be the most powerful bad guys. It may be even still be your group, but turns out you are dead and the rest of your group isn't quite as good as you thought
Don't believe me? Take Karl Marx and Communism as an example. By making violence a part of the "Implementation Plan" for Communism, guess who tended to rise to the top? Just look at who rose to the top in China and USSR in the various revolutions.
The stupid defenders of communism keep saying "ah but China/USSR/etc is not true communism". Of course it's not true communism - that sort of implementation plan works better for creating a Dictatorship than Communism!
After those "Great Leap Forwards", the citizens had to wait for the dictators to die[1]/screw up and lose power, and then wait for bureaucrats who are less violent to get into power.
Like it or not, the USA got lucky/blessed. It actually had the good guys seizing power and then voluntarily splitting up the power and giving it out safely. While violence was a necessary part of their plan it was not the defining bit of their plan. Think about it.
The USA already has a form of democracy. If people think the masses of people can't vote properly with ballot boxes, or participate by running for elections etc, what makes people think they can vote properly with bullets?
IMO you should reserve the violent stuff for when _despite_ all other _nonviolent_ _attempted_ methods the situation ends up so bad that even if you screw up the violent plan the situation doesn't really end up much worse. I personally don't think I'll be very good at it, so I might as well not try.
[1] Careful when you wish for AIs and/or much longer human lifespans- while eventually even AIs will die that might take a lot longer than 120 years.
Thanks for the Apple II! I really liked the manuals too. Thanks to the well written manuals I learnt 6502 machine code and basic from them when I was 8. OK so my parents got me an apple 2 clone first, but they did get me a IIGS later on.
Anyway, the self sacrifice stuff is overrated. The helping others bit is good. While the second often requires the first, that's not always true. If everyone went around helping others the world would be a better place, but I'm not so sure the same applies if everyone went around self-sacrificing...
With regards to the house stuff, I figure since you're reasonably smart and can think "out of the box", nothing wrong with you doing the thinking, researching and experimentation even if it uses more energy and resources, especially since you're doing it with your own money.
Leave the not so smart ones to buy/use existing already built efficient houses, after all they are unlikely to come up with something better.
While the world has got X resources, letting you use a bit more than the rest (that you've acquired legally and reasonably ethically) to potentially figure out new stuff doesn't seem a bad thing to me. That's the principle of investing in R&D.
Anyway I bet you'd be using less energy than shipping a single M1 Abrams tank to Iraq and keeping it active there.
p.s. As for those silly complaints about Al Gore - he's a politician, he can't live in a two person hole in the ground - he's got to throw parties, entertain heads of state and all that stuff. He still needs a bigger than average house whether he pays for it or the taxpayers pay for it (and it belongs to the country).
It's civilized when you go through the legal system which then gets the designated men with guns (cops/military) to do it.
It's not civilized when you go get your guns and do it yourself without regards to the law. That's vigilantism or mob violence.
Civilized: voters elect a government, which makes the laws and decides who enforces the laws.
Uncivilized: You shoot someone because you don't like what he did or just don't like his face/affiliation.
It's like players/fighters agreeing to have someone to referee over them and to play/fight by certain rules. Then even if it's a fight you can then have a good _clean_ "fight", and it's still considered civilized (you could still have a dirty fight - ear biting etc, but that's where the rules for infringement come in).
A country goes to crap pretty quickly if too many people started doing DIY "law" enforcement.
It's recommended to have early domestication of juvenile humans, and proper training/education/brainwashing of them. Otherwise the **AA, MTV, Hollywood etc will be doing it instead.
Get a clue. ALL governments (whether legitimately elected ones or even evil dictatorships) should enforce a strict monopoly on violence - no one else allowed to shoot people except the government. Whether you're the Gov of Switzerland or Saddam, that's how you keep order in a country AND stop others from usurping your authority - if you allow a mob leader to go about bashing others, he might gain power and kick you out next.
The justice system decides who should be punished. The cops/military are to come in whenever the justice system gets ignored.
With your suggested "abolition of the civil justice system" it'll be "winner is the one left alive with the most after the civil war".
You may like that, but I hope most people don't.