Uh... there is? At least on my iPhone there is. After the 5th attempt it makes you wait increasingly long between each further attempt. By the time you're up to 8 or 9 attempts you're waiting hours. On the 10th or 11th, it wipes the phone completely.
The modem/router I use is an FritzBox 7390. It's quite a new model... however for the previous few years I was using a Billion 7404VNPX which also now supports IPv6 (via a recent firmware update).
Apologies for my inaccurate terminology re prefix delegation. I'm new to all this and not a particular expert in networking. The fact sheet from my ISP about IPv6 says, verbatim:
What will [connecting to the IPv6 trial] give me?
* Your existing IPv4 address (if static) and route(s)
* A dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 PPP session
* A dynamic/64 IPv6 prefix for your PPP session
* A stable/60 IPv6 prefix for your LAN (if you are using a router with Prefix Delegation)
Your IPv6 Access Device/router should assign/64 subnets to it's interfaces after it obtains a DHCPv6 PD lease. It should then offer the prefix to your hosts via IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration. In more complicated setups you may choose to use DHCPv6 as well.
Currently the addresses assigned via Prefix Delegation for your LAN will be stable (not dynamic).
Hopefully this answers some of your questions. It seems to me that several of the ISPs in Australia are fairly on the ball when it comes to IPv6. Internode is probably most advanced but a few of the others are also getting ready to trial it in the next year I believe. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Australia is within APNIC's area of responsibility. APNIC is due to run out of IPv4s first among all the RIRs due to the rapid expansion of networked services in Asia.
Not to mention that if you really don't want a particular device getting an IPv6 address, you can always just tell it not to have one/ignore IPv6 allocation in the network settings.
Yes this is definitely something to be aware of. However, from what I've seen, consumer routers that support IPv6 natively also have a built in stateful IPv6 firewall - turned on by default with generally sensible settings for a home user. Additionally, behind that you still have Windows firewall/Mac OS firewall etc on the end machine - again this is turned on by default in most OSes (Windows since XP SP2). Non-computer devices OTOH may be a concern (eg. your example of light switches), but again the routers firewall should still help here.
Not to write off the issue - it is definitely something that needs to be brought to people's attention, and I bet there will be some high profile security failures on earlier versions of IPv6 routers and devices. But it isn't inherently any more dangerous than the earlier days of home Internet when machines connected directly to the net rather than via NAT and can be managed by router manufacturers ensuring they ship good firewalls in their products.
Typically if the web interface of the router has IPv6 related options in it I imagine. Mine has a whopping great button 'enable IPv6'. When pressed, it makes a bunch of other options appear (e.g. method of obtaining IPv6 addresses from the ISP: prefix delegation, DHCPv6, manual assignment etc.)
Or I suppose if the manual or box the router came in mentions IPv6 support;)
Well I suppose it depends on how complex your setup is of course. But for me it was as simple as:
1.ISP announces that they now support native IPv6 for residential DSL customers. If you'd like to use it, and you have a modem/router that supports it, simply change your login name (in your modem/router) from username@ISP.net to username@ipv6.ISP.net
2. I had a modem/router that did support native IPv6, so I went into the router web interface, clicked the 'enable IPv6' box, changed the PPP username as requested, and let it reconnect.
3. Profit? Well no... but that's all that was needed. IPv6 aware machines on the network immediately picked up an IPv6 address via stateless autoconfiguration (I could manually assign IPv6 IPs or use DHCPv6 if I really wanted but frankly the autoconfig works flawlessly).
My existing NATed IPv4 settings and port forwardings etc remained intact, since it's dual stack. Machines on the LAN just now also have a global IPv6 address as well.
Really the 'pain' involved is just waiting for your ISP to support it, and potentially upgrading your router to one that is IPv6-aware. But once everything is in place it is just a few clicks. Having said that, if you have a particularly complex setup with heaps of servers and port forwards etc. it might be trickier - but keep in mind that none of that breaks just because you enable IPv6: your existing IPv4 configurations are still there and working just as well as they have always done.
ADSL2+, which is the main version of the DSL technology used in most countries supports up to 24 Mbit downstream and up to 1 Mbit upstream (Annex A) or 2.5 Mbit upstream (Annex M). However, the speed you get is highly dependent on the length of your phone line - you have to be within a few hundred meters of the exchange to get the max speed. So it's luck of the draw depending on where you live in relationship to your telephone exchange.
Personally I am on a fairly long phone line of around 3.5 km which limits my modem to getting around 7 or 8 Mbit. If I lived closer to the exchange I'd get faster.
I am guessing from your comment that you live in North America. For some reason there's been very little deployment of ADSL2/2+ in North America. Most areas still only have ADSL1, which is limited to 8 Mbit down (less if you are more than a couple of miles from the exchange). I suspect this is at least partly due to the very high penetration rates of comparatively fast cable Internet in American compared to other countries.
Oh and to add to that, yeah don't bother with the tunnels. I just stayed on IPv4 until my ISP switched to full native IPv6 in the last few months. They had been offering 6to4 tunneling for a year or two before that but I didn't bother. Seemed easier just waiting and going directly to native IPv6. And no loss of speed etc. (in fact I swear it seems to do IPv6 DNS lookups slightly faster than over IPv4)
Couldn't agree more. Perhaps you could justify it if you spent 90% of your time on the computer watching video but for everything else I much prefer 16:10 or even 4:3 or 5:4.
I normally don't give Dell the time of day but grab a U2410 monitor and you won't regret it. IPS display, 16:10 ratio and not hideously expensive. Will be using mine for a long time to come.
A timely article - I just got full native IPv6 running for my home internet connection last week (dual stack, of course).
Works well - the DSL modem connects like usual and the ISP assigns you a dynamic IPv6/64 for the PPP session (ie. the modem's public IPv6 address), a static/60 for your LAN (your router then dishes out IPs within this subnet to the machines on the network via prefix delegation), and of course your good old standard single IPv4 address.
My Linux, Win 7, Mac OSX machines, iPad and iPhone all had no issue correctly picking up their IPv6 address and using it. The only things on the home network that are still IPv4 only are my old D-link NAS and the Wii. Attempting to access something, IPv6 is tried first, and it that fails it'll fall back to IPv4. Most Google sites are IPv6 enabled it seems, though other than that, the vast majority of stuff I access is still IPv4 only at this stage.
It really is weird having every machine in the house with a unique, globally addressable IP again after all these years behind a single public address using NAT. No more port forwarding.
I don't think he's saying he actually has a guaranteed 3 Mbit DSL connection (i.e. a plan with an SLA). What he's saying is that ADSL is generally subject to a lot less contention than cable.
Which is true - with ADSL you have the bandwidth between you and the exchange/DSLAM, at whatever sync rate you have, all to yourself, whereas with cable you are competing with a dozen neighbours on the local loop. Once you hit the DSLAM and enter the ISP's network you are subject to the same contention as everyone else, of course, but generally the ISP-level contention (assuming a vaguely decent quality ISP) is a lot less significant than the immediate contention due to the last-mile cable being a shared medium when using DOCSIS (where you could have the best ISP in the world, but it would mean little if you are sharing the cable with a bunch of other leechers).
End result is that if you buy a plan from an ISP with 3 Mbps sync speed, you generally do get that speed. Similarly here in Australia - unless you are unfortunate enough to be on a RIM with poor backhaul (i.e. provided you actually do have a direct line to the exchange), you aren't sharing your line speed with anyone else. Cable OTOH is different in that there isn't really a 'sync speed' as such. The speed you get at any given time depends on various factors and will fluctuate quite a bit.
ADSL of course is still advertised as "up to X" in Australia, because you aren't usually sold plans based on their sync speed. You buy a plan with a certain download allowance and on most plans you'll get 'whatever sync speed your line can manage'. This could be as low as a megabit or two, or as high as 24 Mbps (for ADSL2+) or 8 Mbps (for ADSL1). The ISP does not guarantee you any particular speed. But in the US, DSL plans are sold based on the speed tier, rather than the download allowance. 1.5 Mbit, 3 Mbit and 6 Mbit are common speeds. If your line can support 20 Mbit but you only buy a 1.5 Mbit plan, that's all you'll get. Similarly, if your line can't manage a 6 Mbit speed, the ISP won't sell you that plan. So in all cases, you get the exact sync speed you bought - hence the perception that DSL is a 'guaranteed' speed. It's not that the actual throughput speed is 'guaranteed' - it just isn't contended at a local level like cable is.
My carrier replaces SIMs, nominally, for $2. But in reality if you go in and say "this one's broken", or "I need to swap this regular SIM for a microSIM", they'll just give you one for free. It's a tiny piece of plastic and metal that costs about 2 cents to manufacture, for God's sake!
Doesn't have to be a jailbreaked iPhone 4, just unlocked.
I use that T-Mobile microSIM in my decidedly non-jailbreaked iPhone 4 all the time when I'm in the US. Only get EDGE data speed of course but that's quite adequate for a bit of email while travelling.
Though, I already find the microSIMs too small to comfortably handle and manipulate. How much smaller do we want them? >
Memories of trying to set up coax-cable LANs of 486s running DOS in order to get a LAN party going. Just IPX networks seemed tough to get going, let alone TCP. Spent three quarters of the day trying to get the network to work and then barely had time left for any multiplayer Doom or Descent:(
Same experience here, growing up in Australia in the 90s. ICQ was by far the most well known and used IM software initially - in fact I don't think anyone used anything but ICQ up until almost the time I graduated in 2000. I was on ICQ almost 24/7 between 1996 and 2000. I can still remember my ICQ UID number to this day. I also used telnet talkers and IRC fairly often too.
By the time I went to university (2001 onwards), MSN had pretty much displaced ICQ as the IM of choice, and it still IS the most popular one today (assuming you don't count Facebook as an IM service).
AIM may as well not have existed here. I hadn't even heard of it before I visited the US for the first time, in 2002. I did have an AIM account for a while in order to talk to some Americans I had met online, who only had AIM, but I always remember being irritated that I had to have this extra account to talk to like 4 people, when the other 100 or so were on ICQ and/or MSN instead.
See post above: other Westminster democracies (such as Canada, UK, etc.) do ~not~ have Constitutional Bills of Rights (which was what was stated in the GP). They implement protections via other means (charters, statutes, international agreements etc.)
Huh? I said ~Constitutional~ Bill of Rights. Formal charters and the EU protections do not fall under that definition. That is specifically why I made the distinction between the way it's done in the US (Constitutional) vs. 'most Westminster democracies' (such as UK, Canada) which are via statute, ratification of international agreements and other like mechanisms.
As mentioned, Australia also has some level of protection in some states in a statutory form (thought not as extensive as Canada, UK etc.).
Oh, I full agree with you. I was just making the point that things aren't usually black and white in law and blanket statements often aren't very accurate.
Australia is by no means a leader on these issues. Freedom of speech (as distinct from freedom of ~political expression~, which is somewhat protected here), has never been considered a particularly important issue here, and as a result legal protection of it is patchy, at best. Certainly not as good as in many (perhaps even most) other western countries.
Freedom of the press - we do somewhat better here, though still don't match the standards seen in other comparable jurisdictions in western and northern Europe, or even places like Japan or NZ. However, if you believe the Press Freedom Index has any worth (a big 'if', I admit), we still have a slight edge on the UK and US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index
Agreed, but remember that the original post in this little thread was based on the premise that Australia hadn't had any school shootings. Then someone mentioned an Australian university shooting, with the implication that this was a 'school shooting' and thus disproved the previous poster's assertion.
In that case the local news would not have called it a school shooting - that was ~precisely~ the point I was making in my first post. I was basically defending the original poster's claim that Australia had had no school shootings, because he/she was correct if they were using the usual 'local' definition of the word. That's all.
No they didn't, because in the dialect of English used here, Virginia Tech isn't a 'school'. So it was a shooting at a university (or technical college, or whatever). Remember - I'm just nitpicking here.:)
The issue is a semantic one - the word 'school' has a somewhat different meaning in North America cf. Australia. Americans often colloquially use the word 'school' to include a tertiary education establishment such as a tech or a university. In Australia, this is not the case: unqualified, the word 'school' is ~strictly~ a place where children go as part of their compulsory education, i.e. a primary/elementary or high school. A university is a university (or 'uni'), never a school.
(Note that there may be 'Schools' within a University, e.g. the School of Computer Science at the University of Blah', but that's School with a capital S. By itself, if you said "I went to school at...", you'd be unambiguously referring to a high school or primary school).
(Similarly, a university isn't a college either - 'college' in Australia usually refers to a residential housing organisation, or division, ~within~ a university, but not the university as a whole. Additionally, in the ACT, 'college' is actually Years 11 and 12 of standard secondary education)
Anyway I was just being a smart-ass, playing on the different meaning of the word in different places. I'm weird like that - the little differences in the English language between the US and elsewhere fascinate me, especially because most people don't even realise a lot of them exist. I've often heard Americans talking with non-Americans about something, thinking they are talking about the same thing, but are actually different things and not realising. This is what happens when you're an Australian and marry an American - after 10 years we are STILL finding subtle differences in language constructs and the meaning of words on a regular basis.
Yet, we can still get on a plane without being nudie scanned or having an invasive pat down, without having to take our shoes off, and without having to put all our liquids in plastic sandwich bags. Clearly this means we MUST have more rights you!
Yeah, see how drawing gross generalisations about the way a country operates based on a handful of very specific examples tend to be pretty much always be completely wrong?
I know poking a stick at foreign jurisdictions is a popular past time on Slashdot (and this is sometimes with good reason) but it would be nice if blanket statements weren't thrown around quite so much about the state of laws in other countries. As usual with most things in life, the situations is generally more complex than can be summed up in a sentence or two.
From the summary:
"Australia has no explicit right to free speech and lacks shield laws to protect investigative journalists from having to reveal sources."
Though this isn't an inaccurate statement at a high level, it's not quite true...
Australia has no ~constitutional~ right to free speech, in that its Constitution does not contain a Bill of Rights like the American one. This is not unusual - most Westminster democracies have no such thing and generally have rights conferred by common law (case law) and/or statutory rights. And at least two jurisdictions DO have "explicit rights" to freedom of expression in Australia - the ACT and Victoria, which both have (statutory) 'Bills of Rights'.
Incidentally there have been proposals to introduce a constitutional Bill of Rights in the past. They have not been successful. There are as many arguments against an entrenched and absolute statement of rights, as there are for one - there are pros and cons in each case.
And as for shield laws - again, the jurisdiction matters. One state, NSW, does indeed have a shield law. The others don't, although I believe WA and a couple of others are working on one at the moment. However, as of March this year, a Federal shield law also passed both houses of the Federal Parliament in March this year and is currently awaiting Royal Assent.
So basically, Australia has some shield laws that may or may not apply depending on the case. In a NSW or Federal court, or a case regarding the NSW or Federal Police or a NSW or Federal law, yes, there are shield laws that apply. Otherwise, no, not at this point in time.
To nitpick: a "school shooting", to me, means it occurs at a primary or high school, where kids are being educated and teachers have a responsibility over those kids. A university is populated by adults and there's not really that same teacher-student responsibility. Universities are also generally more open in terms of who can just walk in and out of them.
But I agree with your post - gun ownership rates do not correlate particularly well with the prevalence of violent crime.
Working fine from here, but that's not surprising since I'm in Australia and likely wouldn't be using the same route to the server as many people in the US (traceroute shows that my route to TPB stays in my own ISP's private network from here, across the Pacific, across the US, and across the Atlantic to London UK - only there does it leave my ISP's network and head off into wherever it is in Europe they are hosting it these days).
Slashdot Mirror
Uh ... there is? At least on my iPhone there is. After the 5th attempt it makes you wait increasingly long between each further attempt. By the time you're up to 8 or 9 attempts you're waiting hours. On the 10th or 11th, it wipes the phone completely.
Hi,
I live in Australia. My ISP is Internode.
The modem/router I use is an FritzBox 7390. It's quite a new model ... however for the previous few years I was using a Billion 7404VNPX which also now supports IPv6 (via a recent firmware update).
Apologies for my inaccurate terminology re prefix delegation. I'm new to all this and not a particular expert in networking. The fact sheet from my ISP about IPv6 says, verbatim:
What will [connecting to the IPv6 trial] give me?
* Your existing IPv4 address (if static) and route(s) /64 IPv6 prefix for your PPP session /60 IPv6 prefix for your LAN (if you are using a router with Prefix Delegation)
* A dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 PPP session
* A dynamic
* A stable
Your IPv6 Access Device/router should assign /64 subnets to it's interfaces after it obtains a DHCPv6 PD lease. It should then offer the prefix to your hosts via IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration. In more complicated setups you may choose to use DHCPv6 as well.
Currently the addresses assigned via Prefix Delegation for your LAN will be stable (not dynamic).
Hopefully this answers some of your questions. It seems to me that several of the ISPs in Australia are fairly on the ball when it comes to IPv6. Internode is probably most advanced but a few of the others are also getting ready to trial it in the next year I believe. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that Australia is within APNIC's area of responsibility. APNIC is due to run out of IPv4s first among all the RIRs due to the rapid expansion of networked services in Asia.
Not to mention that if you really don't want a particular device getting an IPv6 address, you can always just tell it not to have one/ignore IPv6 allocation in the network settings.
Yes this is definitely something to be aware of. However, from what I've seen, consumer routers that support IPv6 natively also have a built in stateful IPv6 firewall - turned on by default with generally sensible settings for a home user. Additionally, behind that you still have Windows firewall/Mac OS firewall etc on the end machine - again this is turned on by default in most OSes (Windows since XP SP2). Non-computer devices OTOH may be a concern (eg. your example of light switches), but again the routers firewall should still help here.
Not to write off the issue - it is definitely something that needs to be brought to people's attention, and I bet there will be some high profile security failures on earlier versions of IPv6 routers and devices. But it isn't inherently any more dangerous than the earlier days of home Internet when machines connected directly to the net rather than via NAT and can be managed by router manufacturers ensuring they ship good firewalls in their products.
Typically if the web interface of the router has IPv6 related options in it I imagine. Mine has a whopping great button 'enable IPv6'. When pressed, it makes a bunch of other options appear (e.g. method of obtaining IPv6 addresses from the ISP: prefix delegation, DHCPv6, manual assignment etc.)
Or I suppose if the manual or box the router came in mentions IPv6 support ;)
Well I suppose it depends on how complex your setup is of course. But for me it was as simple as:
1.ISP announces that they now support native IPv6 for residential DSL customers. If you'd like to use it, and you have a modem/router that supports it, simply change your login name (in your modem/router) from username@ISP.net to username@ipv6.ISP.net
2. I had a modem/router that did support native IPv6, so I went into the router web interface, clicked the 'enable IPv6' box, changed the PPP username as requested, and let it reconnect.
3. Profit? Well no ... but that's all that was needed. IPv6 aware machines on the network immediately picked up an IPv6 address via stateless autoconfiguration (I could manually assign IPv6 IPs or use DHCPv6 if I really wanted but frankly the autoconfig works flawlessly).
My existing NATed IPv4 settings and port forwardings etc remained intact, since it's dual stack. Machines on the LAN just now also have a global IPv6 address as well.
Really the 'pain' involved is just waiting for your ISP to support it, and potentially upgrading your router to one that is IPv6-aware. But once everything is in place it is just a few clicks. Having said that, if you have a particularly complex setup with heaps of servers and port forwards etc. it might be trickier - but keep in mind that none of that breaks just because you enable IPv6: your existing IPv4 configurations are still there and working just as well as they have always done.
ADSL2+, which is the main version of the DSL technology used in most countries supports up to 24 Mbit downstream and up to 1 Mbit upstream (Annex A) or 2.5 Mbit upstream (Annex M). However, the speed you get is highly dependent on the length of your phone line - you have to be within a few hundred meters of the exchange to get the max speed. So it's luck of the draw depending on where you live in relationship to your telephone exchange.
Personally I am on a fairly long phone line of around 3.5 km which limits my modem to getting around 7 or 8 Mbit. If I lived closer to the exchange I'd get faster.
I am guessing from your comment that you live in North America. For some reason there's been very little deployment of ADSL2/2+ in North America. Most areas still only have ADSL1, which is limited to 8 Mbit down (less if you are more than a couple of miles from the exchange). I suspect this is at least partly due to the very high penetration rates of comparatively fast cable Internet in American compared to other countries.
Oh and to add to that, yeah don't bother with the tunnels. I just stayed on IPv4 until my ISP switched to full native IPv6 in the last few months. They had been offering 6to4 tunneling for a year or two before that but I didn't bother. Seemed easier just waiting and going directly to native IPv6. And no loss of speed etc. (in fact I swear it seems to do IPv6 DNS lookups slightly faster than over IPv4)
Most ISPs should be assigning you a /60 or /64 or something. Mine currently dishes out a static /60 prefix if you connect via IPv6.
Couldn't agree more. Perhaps you could justify it if you spent 90% of your time on the computer watching video but for everything else I much prefer 16:10 or even 4:3 or 5:4.
I normally don't give Dell the time of day but grab a U2410 monitor and you won't regret it. IPS display, 16:10 ratio and not hideously expensive. Will be using mine for a long time to come.
A timely article - I just got full native IPv6 running for my home internet connection last week (dual stack, of course).
Works well - the DSL modem connects like usual and the ISP assigns you a dynamic IPv6 /64 for the PPP session (ie. the modem's public IPv6 address), a static /60 for your LAN (your router then dishes out IPs within this subnet to the machines on the network via prefix delegation), and of course your good old standard single IPv4 address.
My Linux, Win 7, Mac OSX machines, iPad and iPhone all had no issue correctly picking up their IPv6 address and using it. The only things on the home network that are still IPv4 only are my old D-link NAS and the Wii. Attempting to access something, IPv6 is tried first, and it that fails it'll fall back to IPv4. Most Google sites are IPv6 enabled it seems, though other than that, the vast majority of stuff I access is still IPv4 only at this stage.
It really is weird having every machine in the house with a unique, globally addressable IP again after all these years behind a single public address using NAT. No more port forwarding.
I don't think he's saying he actually has a guaranteed 3 Mbit DSL connection (i.e. a plan with an SLA). What he's saying is that ADSL is generally subject to a lot less contention than cable.
Which is true - with ADSL you have the bandwidth between you and the exchange/DSLAM, at whatever sync rate you have, all to yourself, whereas with cable you are competing with a dozen neighbours on the local loop. Once you hit the DSLAM and enter the ISP's network you are subject to the same contention as everyone else, of course, but generally the ISP-level contention (assuming a vaguely decent quality ISP) is a lot less significant than the immediate contention due to the last-mile cable being a shared medium when using DOCSIS (where you could have the best ISP in the world, but it would mean little if you are sharing the cable with a bunch of other leechers).
End result is that if you buy a plan from an ISP with 3 Mbps sync speed, you generally do get that speed. Similarly here in Australia - unless you are unfortunate enough to be on a RIM with poor backhaul (i.e. provided you actually do have a direct line to the exchange), you aren't sharing your line speed with anyone else. Cable OTOH is different in that there isn't really a 'sync speed' as such. The speed you get at any given time depends on various factors and will fluctuate quite a bit.
ADSL of course is still advertised as "up to X" in Australia, because you aren't usually sold plans based on their sync speed. You buy a plan with a certain download allowance and on most plans you'll get 'whatever sync speed your line can manage'. This could be as low as a megabit or two, or as high as 24 Mbps (for ADSL2+) or 8 Mbps (for ADSL1). The ISP does not guarantee you any particular speed. But in the US, DSL plans are sold based on the speed tier, rather than the download allowance. 1.5 Mbit, 3 Mbit and 6 Mbit are common speeds. If your line can support 20 Mbit but you only buy a 1.5 Mbit plan, that's all you'll get. Similarly, if your line can't manage a 6 Mbit speed, the ISP won't sell you that plan. So in all cases, you get the exact sync speed you bought - hence the perception that DSL is a 'guaranteed' speed. It's not that the actual throughput speed is 'guaranteed' - it just isn't contended at a local level like cable is.
$50?!
My carrier replaces SIMs, nominally, for $2. But in reality if you go in and say "this one's broken", or "I need to swap this regular SIM for a microSIM", they'll just give you one for free. It's a tiny piece of plastic and metal that costs about 2 cents to manufacture, for God's sake!
Note: I don't live in the US.
Doesn't have to be a jailbreaked iPhone 4, just unlocked.
I use that T-Mobile microSIM in my decidedly non-jailbreaked iPhone 4 all the time when I'm in the US. Only get EDGE data speed of course but that's quite adequate for a bit of email while travelling.
Though, I already find the microSIMs too small to comfortably handle and manipulate. How much smaller do we want them? >
Oh God.
Memories of trying to set up coax-cable LANs of 486s running DOS in order to get a LAN party going. Just IPX networks seemed tough to get going, let alone TCP. Spent three quarters of the day trying to get the network to work and then barely had time left for any multiplayer Doom or Descent :(
Same experience here, growing up in Australia in the 90s. ICQ was by far the most well known and used IM software initially - in fact I don't think anyone used anything but ICQ up until almost the time I graduated in 2000. I was on ICQ almost 24/7 between 1996 and 2000. I can still remember my ICQ UID number to this day. I also used telnet talkers and IRC fairly often too.
By the time I went to university (2001 onwards), MSN had pretty much displaced ICQ as the IM of choice, and it still IS the most popular one today (assuming you don't count Facebook as an IM service).
AIM may as well not have existed here. I hadn't even heard of it before I visited the US for the first time, in 2002. I did have an AIM account for a while in order to talk to some Americans I had met online, who only had AIM, but I always remember being irritated that I had to have this extra account to talk to like 4 people, when the other 100 or so were on ICQ and/or MSN instead.
See post above: other Westminster democracies (such as Canada, UK, etc.) do ~not~ have Constitutional Bills of Rights (which was what was stated in the GP). They implement protections via other means (charters, statutes, international agreements etc.)
Huh? I said ~Constitutional~ Bill of Rights. Formal charters and the EU protections do not fall under that definition. That is specifically why I made the distinction between the way it's done in the US (Constitutional) vs. 'most Westminster democracies' (such as UK, Canada) which are via statute, ratification of international agreements and other like mechanisms.
As mentioned, Australia also has some level of protection in some states in a statutory form (thought not as extensive as Canada, UK etc.).
Oh, I full agree with you. I was just making the point that things aren't usually black and white in law and blanket statements often aren't very accurate.
Australia is by no means a leader on these issues. Freedom of speech (as distinct from freedom of ~political expression~, which is somewhat protected here), has never been considered a particularly important issue here, and as a result legal protection of it is patchy, at best. Certainly not as good as in many (perhaps even most) other western countries.
Freedom of the press - we do somewhat better here, though still don't match the standards seen in other comparable jurisdictions in western and northern Europe, or even places like Japan or NZ. However, if you believe the Press Freedom Index has any worth (a big 'if', I admit), we still have a slight edge on the UK and US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index
Agreed, but remember that the original post in this little thread was based on the premise that Australia hadn't had any school shootings. Then someone mentioned an Australian university shooting, with the implication that this was a 'school shooting' and thus disproved the previous poster's assertion.
In that case the local news would not have called it a school shooting - that was ~precisely~ the point I was making in my first post. I was basically defending the original poster's claim that Australia had had no school shootings, because he/she was correct if they were using the usual 'local' definition of the word. That's all.
No they didn't, because in the dialect of English used here, Virginia Tech isn't a 'school'. So it was a shooting at a university (or technical college, or whatever). Remember - I'm just nitpicking here. :)
The issue is a semantic one - the word 'school' has a somewhat different meaning in North America cf. Australia. Americans often colloquially use the word 'school' to include a tertiary education establishment such as a tech or a university. In Australia, this is not the case: unqualified, the word 'school' is ~strictly~ a place where children go as part of their compulsory education, i.e. a primary/elementary or high school. A university is a university (or 'uni'), never a school.
(Note that there may be 'Schools' within a University, e.g. the School of Computer Science at the University of Blah', but that's School with a capital S. By itself, if you said "I went to school at ...", you'd be unambiguously referring to a high school or primary school).
(Similarly, a university isn't a college either - 'college' in Australia usually refers to a residential housing organisation, or division, ~within~ a university, but not the university as a whole. Additionally, in the ACT, 'college' is actually Years 11 and 12 of standard secondary education)
Anyway I was just being a smart-ass, playing on the different meaning of the word in different places. I'm weird like that - the little differences in the English language between the US and elsewhere fascinate me, especially because most people don't even realise a lot of them exist. I've often heard Americans talking with non-Americans about something, thinking they are talking about the same thing, but are actually different things and not realising. This is what happens when you're an Australian and marry an American - after 10 years we are STILL finding subtle differences in language constructs and the meaning of words on a regular basis.
Yet, we can still get on a plane without being nudie scanned or having an invasive pat down, without having to take our shoes off, and without having to put all our liquids in plastic sandwich bags. Clearly this means we MUST have more rights you!
Yeah, see how drawing gross generalisations about the way a country operates based on a handful of very specific examples tend to be pretty much always be completely wrong?
I know poking a stick at foreign jurisdictions is a popular past time on Slashdot (and this is sometimes with good reason) but it would be nice if blanket statements weren't thrown around quite so much about the state of laws in other countries. As usual with most things in life, the situations is generally more complex than can be summed up in a sentence or two.
From the summary:
"Australia has no explicit right to free speech and lacks shield laws to protect investigative journalists from having to reveal sources."
Though this isn't an inaccurate statement at a high level, it's not quite true...
Australia has no ~constitutional~ right to free speech, in that its Constitution does not contain a Bill of Rights like the American one. This is not unusual - most Westminster democracies have no such thing and generally have rights conferred by common law (case law) and/or statutory rights. And at least two jurisdictions DO have "explicit rights" to freedom of expression in Australia - the ACT and Victoria, which both have (statutory) 'Bills of Rights'.
Incidentally there have been proposals to introduce a constitutional Bill of Rights in the past. They have not been successful. There are as many arguments against an entrenched and absolute statement of rights, as there are for one - there are pros and cons in each case.
And as for shield laws - again, the jurisdiction matters. One state, NSW, does indeed have a shield law. The others don't, although I believe WA and a couple of others are working on one at the moment. However, as of March this year, a Federal shield law also passed both houses of the Federal Parliament in March this year and is currently awaiting Royal Assent.
So basically, Australia has some shield laws that may or may not apply depending on the case. In a NSW or Federal court, or a case regarding the NSW or Federal Police or a NSW or Federal law, yes, there are shield laws that apply. Otherwise, no, not at this point in time.
To nitpick: a "school shooting", to me, means it occurs at a primary or high school, where kids are being educated and teachers have a responsibility over those kids. A university is populated by adults and there's not really that same teacher-student responsibility. Universities are also generally more open in terms of who can just walk in and out of them.
But I agree with your post - gun ownership rates do not correlate particularly well with the prevalence of violent crime.
Working fine from here, but that's not surprising since I'm in Australia and likely wouldn't be using the same route to the server as many people in the US (traceroute shows that my route to TPB stays in my own ISP's private network from here, across the Pacific, across the US, and across the Atlantic to London UK - only there does it leave my ISP's network and head off into wherever it is in Europe they are hosting it these days).