Honestly, it is probably both, coupled to the incompetent person's inability to recognize competence.
Much like with the ipad school webcam spying scandal, where school administrators deemed themselves sufficient oversight against abusive use of the technology, (when they clearly weren't, when they suspending the kid for eating mike and ikes) we have a government repesentative who feels that the federal review processes they have created behind walls of secrecy and confidentiality are sufficient oversight against larger abuses, like the production of huge statistical data caches to mine, and the invasion of privacy and disregard toward american citizens in general.
Feinstien is simply incompetent, and as such, is incapable of recognizing true competency.
In addition to this, there are people who truely are competent that simply are acting immoral, having been given carte blanc to do whatever the hell they want to "keep america safe from the boogyman!", without any truly meaningful oversight or restrictions, or penalties for their abuses of authority.
The current crop of citizens most interviewed by the media about this issue are in their 20s and 30s.
About a decade ago, pre september 11, those people would be in their teens and early 20s.
At that time, a goodly proportion of them would still be active participants in highschool, and coincidentally, this is also the time that the columbine high shootings occured. (1999) Even prior to this, the use of security cameras in hallways, classroorms, and commons areas in US highschools was on the rise. After the event, any question of if this was a good idea was summarily shouted down, amid personal accusations of endangering children.
It is now 10 years later, and the students subjected to the omnipresent institutionalized observation and invasion of privacy are now desensitized to the issue, and see it as just more of the same. The gravity of the situation is lost, as the cameras are not viewed as the threat to civil liberties that they truely are, but just another banal feature of daily life to be ignored.
I can't exactly prove this, but the effects of institutionalism on behavior should not be ignored. Just ask the folks at standford.
The reason it costs so much to provision those areas, is the simple fact that equipment is priced to match the local maxima of maximum profit from dense urban centers.
That is to say, the supply is carefully match to suit ONLY the local maxima, so *ANY* deployment of a larger scale will exceed supply, and cause a spike in prices.
Continuing to capitulate to this paradigm will only ensure that the bare minimum necessary buildout occurs, and only in dense, high profit areas. (Shock! Exactly what's happening right now!)
An overwhelming, massive demand for infrastructure hardware with government teeth behind it, like a national broadband plan would produce, would drive down the cots of city deployments by orders of magnitude, because supply would then outstrip metro demand in the years following the buildout. This means better infrastructure in the cities for a radically reduced cost over what would have been needed if the plan had not gone forth.
The real problem: the local maxima results in the highest benefit:cost ratio for the ISPs and wire providers. The reduced costs of buildout couple directly to increased maintenence costs, which harms their profit margins. This makes it "toxic". Not impossible, just less desirable than the BS cozy gig they currently enjoy.
The fallacy you employ, is assuming status quo prices in the face of mandatory increases in production. Economics of scale dictates this is flat out false. (Assuming of course, that the fed grows a pair, and prevents the telcos from simply inhaling the money and doing nothing, like they did in the 90s.)
The ideal solution to the problem, is to provide an ultimatum:
Build out the network, at our timetable, or lose your local franchise rights in favor of startups that will.
I agree! I just take exception to the "well, move to the city then! MEH!" Attitude.
I have several reasons why the broadband plan (if done right, something I have low confidence of, given the quality of our government administration) should be supported, if nothing else, in principle:
1) the current complaint by ISPs about infrastructure deployments, is that they are expensive. Their model of servicing ONLY large metro areas only einforces this cycle, because it undermines cost reductions from economy of scale.
A massive nation wide buildout would create insane demand, followed by ramped up production to meet that demand, followed by radically reduced prices once the buildout is made. This will make infrastructure renovation in urban areas considerably less expensive after the plan, than they would have been without it. This is for things like optical fiber, MTUs, and other specialist backbone equipment, not to mention other components on the downtream end, that are still copper based.
2) as stated, the direct benefit is a wealthier, more prosperous nation overall, with reduced barriers to entry in other aspects of american life. Improved educational opportunities for rural born residents to actually have skillsets that would be useful in urban environments should they decide to move, etc.
The "what do *i* get, HUH!?" Mantra is short sighted, ignorant, and systemically destructive.
The act passed in the 30s, but the buildout didn't happen overnight. Most of the infrastructure placed to comply with that law came in the 40s and 50s.
The really sad part, is that without the rural electrification act, the people growing food in the US in rural counties would likely *STILL* not have basic electrical and wired telephone services, and the very pundits complaining about the proposed broadband equivalent, would be the most vocal about the issue. (Specifically, spouting the same arrogant ass vapor about how if those people want electricity and telephone service, that they should just move to the city!)
How do I know this? I grew up in such a county, where 90+% of the land allotments are farmland, and the "cities" are fewer than 10k residents. The state of the power distribution system? Apalling. (If one of those precious cities these people go on about had service that interrupted power 50+ times a day, and had deleterious line noise 100% of the time that requires a line conditioner like where I grew up, they would be demanding the government "do something.") Telephone service? Laughable, and NOT maintained. Last I checked, there were still wire boxes from the 1950s, which only went in because of said act, still in active service, rusting away underneath hedgerows.
The ONLY reason that such places even *GET* such service at all, is because of that bill.
The people who bitch about "subsidizing the 'rich' lifestyles of rural people" would spout the exact same claptrap had the rural electrification act not passed, and was being discussed now, even though the 'rich' people they try to demonize would be using kerosine lanterns for light, lack any kind of climate control in their homes other than open windows and a fireplace (it takes electricity to run a furnace. Something has to power the thermostat, and the house blower.), and would be just a few shakes above 2nd or 3rd world shithole in livability.
But they would damned well expect to find produce and beef at their supermarets.
The unpleasant reality that the "people who live out in the country are rich!" Fallacy fails to address? The average pay per year for rural residents is at or below 50k. With kids. Eg "at or below poverty line" if they lived in the city that they rail about so incessantly.
Yes, I'm a bit bitter about the issue. Because it pisses me the fuck off whenever I hear "move to the city then!" As an excuse.
The real reason those fucks say that?
Because by forcing more people into the already overcrowded city, the stand to benefit by that newcomer's taxes. They may not give it the rational thought to completely arrive at that conclusion consciously, but that is basically the crux of it. "What do *I* get out of the deal?"
You get an america that isn't divided into economic disparites like fucking china, where you have people with broadband internet and moder housing in the cities, and people living in fucking mud huts on the farmland that can't even write. That's what assholes.
The reason why rural america isn't like rural china? Acts like the electrification act, and now, proposals like the broadband act. Straight up, 100%. There were people without running water or indoor toiletry in the rural US in the 1950s, when that bill passed! The forced buildout *greatly* improved america.
"Move to the city!" Indeed, assholes. I suppose you would say that to poor chineese people too, wouldn't you?
As long as it is *required* for humans to work, and not optional, the "work for betterment of humanity" angle can never work.
Basically, we need soul-less, emotionless, and thankless machines to do those jobs that nobody wants to do.
Humans have to become "irrevelavent" to the maintenance and operation of the gears and cogs of mass production and infrastructure as anything other than the source of innovation. (That is to say, a mega plague could sweep the planet and extinct all human life, and the machines would continue on, repairing empty houses, growing food that won't be eaten, and maintaining themselves, each other, and all the physical social infrastructure. Human involvement is not necessary for "the system" to function.)
Until we have machines that fill this role, the proposal will never work, as cited.
When such machines DO become available, then there would no longer be a need for money, or wealth.
Every time I see a heavily redacted document like that, I can't help but pretend it's a madlib.
"Opinion number M-9458985 needs to be kept secret because it would expose hillary clinton as being a militant lesbian feminist which is a very serious allegation that has been confirmed by Janet Reno and Madaline Allbright as well as the following independent intelligence sources: NSA, CIA, FBI, and select members of the LGBT community . If this opinion were to be made public it could easily have the following horrible consequences: including, but not limited to, threats to her safety while engaging in "diplomatic activities" in countries and territories of the middle east, threaten her viability as a DNC politician for presidential candidacy, and subject her to ridicule in the popular press.
Feel free to put anything else you like in the blanks instead!
Seriously though, what we need are well defined categories and adjectives to take the place of [redacted] in these filings. That way it isn't a black bar where text was, but a general filing category describing the kind of content that goes there. That way it wouldn't become a farsical madlib.
The main crux behind "security through obscurity...", is the same behind other types of "ignorance is bliss" arguments.
Using the changing room at Dillards to try on a suit, that has a peep cam installed, takes pictures of your junk regardless of if you know about it or not.
In fact, I you have been warned that the changing booth has a peep cam, you can mitigate your risk of having your dick on somthingawful, by either not using the changing room, or by putting gum over the lens.
If you don't know about the camera, THAT'S when you have the most problem with people being crotch cammed.
If Dillards KNOWS about the crotchcams, but can't easily remove them and make the booths camera free, but fails to inform their patrons and ask that they forgo the use of the changing booths until they are fixed and safe, what does that say about the store?
Again, being crotched cammed unawares doesn't mean you weren't crotchcammed.
Same holds true for security exploits in computer systems. These days, you really should expect to be getting crotchcammed regardless, and be ever vigilant. It isn't tinfoil hattery. Just put an unpatched XP fresh install on the net, and watch the fireworks.
Companies refusing to disclose threats to the public only puts them at increased risk.
I could very well pull one of the blackhat user credential database dumps (many is better!), cross reference that plaintext stream, and get a surprisingly narrow view into already compromised accounts that use that password.
This is because users are, by and large, dumb, lumbering creatures of habbit, and reuse usernames and passwords. when you spread the attack surface over many disparate systems like that, you make yourself far more vulnerable than you realize.
While I can't garantee that your precious account will be in a combined assortment of clandestine database dumps like that, it gives me a very good starting point in hunting your ass down.
The nonsequitor there, is in asserting that because the whitehat hasn't disclosed his findings, that others haven't also independently found the hole, and been more mum about it.
Which is more profitable for a person who makes their living by stealing company secrets, laundering money through wire fraud, or selling stolen identity information?
Using an exploit that has been publicly discosed, and thus, everyone is super paranoid about it, and actively trying to plug it-- OR-- a nice little treasure trove of privately discovered exploits that aren't public knowledge that you can quiety switch to once the hole you are currently using gets discovered?
"Saving face" for the company fascilitates the real blackhats by keeping admins and users ignorant of the threat.
All public disclosure does is make real blackhat attackers silently move to their next vector, and cause a spike in script kid activities. (And of course, make the software vendor look bad.)
I never said I believed in "unbeatable protection". That's a strawman. I basically said that "out of sight, out of mind!" Is not a proper risk mitigation practice. Most certainly NOT the same thing as professing a belief in perfect security.
Proper keypair generation attempts to make it more costly for the attacker to profit from the action of hacking, and actually demonstrates this fact for them, should they try anyway.
Shitty obscurity based half-assery fakes being strong, to detur attempts, but fails easily on inspection. Something like using a password to XOR a file, and calling it "encrypted.", or doing what sony did and reusing the sae salt over and over again, completly defeating the purpose of the salt in the process.
Relying on "don't tell anybody! We'l get to it eventually, and if you don't tell, nobody will find out!" Is bullshit, which is what typically happens with so called "responsible disclosure." I have heard of serious exploits hanging around for YEARS after being "responsibly disclosed."
I understand that you can't fix the hole instantly, and that the patch needs to be tested to make sure it doesn't poke another hole elsewhere. However, informing the people at the most risk, (customers), that they need to take some mitigating actions to reduce the threat, and to watch for signs of exploit until the patch is ready is what is the responsible thing for the software vendor to do. NOT hide the exploit and try to forget about it, while less scrupulous crackers silently use it in combination with other exploits to commit fraud, steal company prividleged information, steal user persona data, build botnets, and worse, while pretending that "it won't happen, because nobody squealed!"
PS3 encryption== security through obscurity. (That salt doesn't need to ACTUALLY be random--each and every time-- does it? Cause, that would be a pain to implement!)
PROPER key pair generation == impossible to realistically derive the secret key from the public key and the payload, due to addition of true random salt. (Where "reasonable" means within the attacker's lifetime.) There simply is not enough information to derive all the factors to refactor the secret key. This is by design, and is considerably different from a simple password in implementation.
In other words, you are being specious, and are downplaying that the security involved with proper encryption is most definately not "if nobody looks, nobody will see!" Type security.
"Herp! He said a commonly used phrase, and I tooked exceptshun tuh dat! Hur-hur, so I calleded him an idjut and a mohron and stuffs! He coulndna poshibly know what dat phraseology thimgy rully means, like I'z does!"
Seriously, that's what you sound like when you say such dumbassery.
A security hole is a security hole. A hole that is not widely known about is not in any credible sense "safer" than one with a demonstration exploit posted on mailing lists.
I would rather that news of exploitable security holes be widely published, so that mitigating secondary security blocks can help cover the hole, and reduce the attack surface as soon as the exploit is discovered. While you can't recompile the kernel on day-0, you CAN filter network traffic, isolate unprotected systems, and take other affirmative actions to safeguard company and private data from unauthorized persons, and prevent the silent execution of malicious software early.
The problem one runs into there, is that most software out there today is not so much "secure", so much as it actually is analogous to a block of aged swiss cheese. Hardened in some places, and totally see-through in others. Managing many disparate suites of software packages means dealing with, and mitigating the risks, of a great, great many peepholes.
But again, a security hole is a security hole, and security through obscurity is no security at all. Wishful thinking that "if nobody says anything, then its perfectly safe to let slide for now!" Puts systems, data, and people at risk for the sake of convenience.
Look at the fallout of the near miss between that german drone aircraft and a small passenger plane that just came to light. Secrecy of the problem does not make the problem go away, and hiding the risks from people (for any reason) who are at risk is beyond inconscionable.
Me? I roll with the AOL floppy disks! Premium MO disks, that just need a little bit of tape put in the corner! After you use the first one to get "On-Line" access, you can use the additional floppies they keep on sending to put all those newsgroup binaries on! The RAR files are conveniently 1.44mb in size even!
Translation: Invent the wheel many many times! Don't you DARE share the data on wheels with others without first getting permission to replicate data from the spoke makers, and rim makers!
Fuck off AC. Look at the internet as a model on how unfettered data proliferation prevents biases from dominating information use. (What's that barbara striesand? That pictue of your beach house is STILL on the internet? Fancy that!) Allowing researchers to share and vet each of these databases you want them to all make independently is EXACTLY how this technology should be used, BECAUSE it prevents usedful data from being hushed up, or forgotten, and gives that data its due. The scientists that created the data want the data shared. The scientists that ewant the data, want it shared.
The only group that does NOT want the data shared, is the publishing industry, because if the data leaves their grimy little fingers, they can't charge rent.
Most of that sum (people) however, would be completely incapable of sustaining themselves.
Take New York, for instance. Millions of people, living in a very dense urban environment, totally dependent upon complex social heirarchies for labor, water, transport, and food distribution from outside localities. Those people would most certainly perish. (The few that have the luxury of rooftop gardens would be under continual threat of brutal crackdowns by just the other tennants in their buildings, and those small gardens would never be able to sustain the city. Throw into that, the destruction of those few production centers via fires, and the deaths of the few who know how to actually grow food instead of buying it at the store, and you quickly have a very serious problem. For a recent eye-opener, look at the LA riots. That was over the brutal beating of a man by local police officers due to something as innane as skin color. Imagine the riots over food distribution, and percieved injustices and subsequent mob reprisals! New York would be burning in days.)
Then you have the continued ecologica uphevals from everyone and adam trying to beat down the doors to the few remaining agreas that are still halfassedly habitable, (like, building houses!) And the situation spirals even more radically out of control.
I don't think you really comprehend the real gravity of what a GLOBAL ecological catastrophe really represents, with a global population as large as ours is.
Humanity *barely* survived the iceage, when we numbered well under 1 billion globally. (Closer to a few million.) This time we would have 7bn, on top of the adverse conditions, all competing to be the survivors. The unburied dead would promote serious issues with plagues, the basic resource shortages would ensure that healthcare would be a far lower priority, and on top of that, you would have batshit people rallying the troops and destroying what's left in mad dash efforts to control it.
I would rather be trapped with "that guy" in a tiny metal box than endure *that* hell.
As for who is going? It's anyone who can pay the admission fee, which is adjusted to all world currencies. It's the 97%, not the 1%. Just that a member of the 1% believes they can get richer by fascilitating the effort.
I agree that it is reprehensible to wrote off the earth and fly away. But high ideals often have bad consequences too. I am a utilitarian. I see utility in having a self sustaining martian colony. I don't really care how it gets funded. Anyone who goes to live in that colony will have nothing but endless hard work and suffering. Going to mars won't be a golden parachute. It will just be a hedged bet against extinction, however slim the margin. In all reality, a 1%er wouldn't be able to HANDLE living on mars anyway.
They wouldn't have 9 billion people outside, unable to care for themselves, looking for what they have, and willing to burn their colony down to the ground to get it, for starters.
Additionally, a self-sustaining colony would not be dependent upon the earth for resources, and as such, would nto be resource dependent upon the earth, so a breakdown of earth's economic and production infrastructures would simply not affect them in any way. The basic requirement for your reprisal is that the martian colony is completely at the mercy of supply shuttles. That is financially unfeasible even without a global crisis, of any magnitude. If you insist on holding that position, no wonder a martian colony looks retarded!
Providing the martian colonists with everything they need to provide for themselves (since despite what you may think, there most certainly *IS* atmosphere on mars, and it would be imminently useful for martian colonists as-is, just not for human breathing, and as such, the colony habitat will not be a closed resource economy! Just sintering the regolith will release oxygen gas because of the perchlorates present, for instance. The curiosity rover's drill sample shows high nitrogen content in the stones sampled, so that is an obtainable resource as well. All the vital materials are availale on site on mars.)
When you aren't having to worry about if the people living "just over there" are going to come kill you for the cabbages you grew, you can spend much more of your time making life better for yourself and others.
The costs of sending people to mars will be outrageous, but that is being privately funded by private enterprise, and is already budgeted. This means that if there is going to be theft and raping and murdering, it will be inside the *ONLY* habitat structure on the entire planet, and would occur regardless of earth conditions. Mars One is performing psych evaluations prior to sending people, and is unlikely to send batshit people.
Now, calculate that your average human requires approximately 2 liters of water daily for proper renal function (though they often do drink less, and it is unhealthy.) Also factor in the scarcity of the material on mars, and the feasibility of sustainable agricultural activities without that large quantity of water.
Now, let's also think about the secondary particles generated when heavy and complex lead neuclei are exposed to iron neculei traveling at near C, and the subsequently exponential impact that this secondary radiation will have as the shielding becomes more and more radiological from constant exposure.
In other words, yes, water has serious issues. You still have to bring it with you if you are really serious about a martian colony. There is no discussion there. You HAVE to take it. It isn't optional. Since you already have to tae it with you, using the absurd cost to orbit it as a canard is moot. Adding the water AND the lead will always cost more than launching just the water.
The water does not have the same problem with producing dangerous secondary radiation, and does not become radioactive itself at near the same rate as will the lead rad shield. The water is already required, and is not optional.
Why not just use the water, then?
You can resolve the "water expands, dumbass!" Problem by freezing it already prior to launch. This also makes it much safer to transport in the event of a micrometeorite puncturing the containment vessel, and believe it or not, ice can be quite insulating, and can serve other functions for regulating the capsule's environment.
That's a pretty profound jump, to state that I don't take climate change very, very seriously, and have used it only because it was convenient as an argument.
Far the contrary, in fact. I believe that it is a very dangerous thing, and that the ensueing chaos associated with food and energy shortages as people attempt to live in an environment that no longer has the human carrying capacity of former generations will definately result in wars, precious few resources squandered on ensuring that only "americans" (insert whatever group most floats your boat here. I'm not picky.) Will be the "haves", and damn all everyone else. I fully expect bullshit like scorched earth policies to be vividly and bombastically be discussed, because of the gravity of that kind of environment, and expect true reason and sensibility to have flown the coop long before.
Our chance to avert the disaster was 20 years ago. We blew it, because it was much more profitable to keep on doing what we were doing before, and to foofoo the data and castigate the science and scientists behind it instead.
The data shows we are now beyond the tipping point. The point of no return has been crossed. Signs are showing up everywhere, and it can't be denied anymore (though many still try anyway.)
The biggest threat will be other people. To me, it would be comforting to know that at least somewhere else in the solar system, a group of people would be huddling in a metal shell growing tomatoes instead of shooting other people, raping other people, and stealing shit as society comes down around all around everyone on the earth.
The calamity is already started. No shelters on earth will be built. There will be worldwide disasters, and instead of working to resolve the proble, people will look for who to blame.
There is a long body of evidence to support humanity behaving in this fashion, as resource collapse has been a recurring thread in human civilizations over the ages. Up until now, those collapses have never been global in scale, however.
This is very much an "act now" moment. This is an achivable goal. I hope they succeed. Fixing the fuckup we have caused on earth is far harder than building a martian greenhouse, and really would be science fiction terraforming. At least on mars, the colonists won't have armed robbers demanding their food.
The earth is in store for some very dire shit indeed, and that doesn't even count what the unknown variable of mass animal and plant form extinctions the changed climate will introduce for continued human activity on earth. Look at the serious dangers that just losing bees offers.
Even if we 100% stop all burning of fossil fuels right now, the warming trend won't stop, and the coastal methane realse will still occur.
You are forgettng that humans are without question altering the environment of the earth in such a fashion that its continued habitability will become much more difficult in a mere 200 years.
Humans *are* the extinction level event. Or are you a climate change denier, that thinks the 97% consensus in the scientific community is wrong?
The calamity doesn't have to be a big space rock. It could just as easily be runaway methane release from continental shelves, and wild environmental conditions, and be completely man made.
Does the hubris matter, if the structure is built, maintained, and crewed, rather than written off as too expesive?
The whole point of building the mars colony is to build the mars colony, as a life insurance policy that you hope to never cash in on.
If its built, there's no need to pay more: 250 thousand people is enough for a viable population to be sustained, so more people aren't even needed. This is a non-argument.
If you supply those risk takers with tools and plans to help them succeed, then they may well do so. That's the point.
Since they won't be disuaded, and want to go, regardless of the risk, at least capitalize on the effort, rather than sabotaging it.
Making assertions about the difficulties says nothing that was not already known, and is therefore without value. You can dislike that these people have chosen to go anyway, but you shouldn't be so self-righteous that you overtly try to stop them, and force them to spend that money and their lives doing things that in YOUR opinion hold greater value.
Life, lemons. Make lemonade. Don't whine and bitch that you can't have the mountain dew you want instead.
That is to say, your argument is mypoic, and ignores all the politics involved in creating such a series of organized structures on earth, all the political dick waving over who's in charge of what, and of course, the fact that serious plans to go fucking build a martian colony are seriously on the table, and has real backers, and real offers to be pulled off, and isn't a hypothetical petard that can't be handwaved away.
You can arrogantly assert that they are dumb and will all die, but that's just your opinion.
I prefer to contemplate what they would need to do to succeed, and offer those ideas, so that their chances of success increase.
Unlike an earth based shelter network, a martian one can just be abandoned in 4 years due to a newly elected president deciding to cut the last administration's projects. If it gets built, and occupied, it will stay built, and occupied.
No earth based solution offers that level of commitent to the project, simply becase the shelters don't provide immediate needs to their inhabitants, and would therefor be seen as collossal wastes of taxpayer resources that could be used for (feeding ethipian babies, fighting crime, stopping child pornographers, stopping internet media pirates, fighting terrorists, %boogeyman_policy%, etc.).
Because humaity will have to fucking EVOLVE before those problems go away, and mars one is RIGHT FUCKING NOW, *and* can't be terminated because somebody has a dick waving fetish to the detriment of all humanity, I see the mars one offer as fantastically more appealing than your bullshit canard.
A website with almost a quarter million people wanting to go build a martian colony, and willing to pay with their own money and lives for the mere opportunity!?
Clearly, that website and that project must be a pure fabrication! It couldn't possibly be real, when no such effort to create thse "oh so much easier!" Earth shelters has even been seriously proposed by *ANY* nation capable of carrying out such a plan!
Because that would mean that a martian colony is clearly more favored than an earth fallout bunker, and has a higher chance of being built, and that would totally ruin your argument!
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, it is probably both, coupled to the incompetent person's inability to recognize competence.
Much like with the ipad school webcam spying scandal, where school administrators deemed themselves sufficient oversight against abusive use of the technology, (when they clearly weren't, when they suspending the kid for eating mike and ikes) we have a government repesentative who feels that the federal review processes they have created behind walls of secrecy and confidentiality are sufficient oversight against larger abuses, like the production of huge statistical data caches to mine, and the invasion of privacy and disregard toward american citizens in general.
Feinstien is simply incompetent, and as such, is incapable of recognizing true competency.
In addition to this, there are people who truely are competent that simply are acting immoral, having been given carte blanc to do whatever the hell they want to "keep america safe from the boogyman!", without any truly meaningful oversight or restrictions, or penalties for their abuses of authority.
This on top of a steadily desensitized public.
Things don't look terribly bright for us.
I would hazard a conjecture:
The current crop of citizens most interviewed by the media about this issue are in their 20s and 30s.
About a decade ago, pre september 11, those people would be in their teens and early 20s.
At that time, a goodly proportion of them would still be active participants in highschool, and coincidentally, this is also the time that the columbine high shootings occured. (1999) Even prior to this, the use of security cameras in hallways, classroorms, and commons areas in US highschools was on the rise. After the event, any question of if this was a good idea was summarily shouted down, amid personal accusations of endangering children.
It is now 10 years later, and the students subjected to the omnipresent institutionalized observation and invasion of privacy are now desensitized to the issue, and see it as just more of the same. The gravity of the situation is lost, as the cameras are not viewed as the threat to civil liberties that they truely are, but just another banal feature of daily life to be ignored.
I can't exactly prove this, but the effects of institutionalism on behavior should not be ignored. Just ask the folks at standford.
Forest: trees
The reason it costs so much to provision those areas, is the simple fact that equipment is priced to match the local maxima of maximum profit from dense urban centers.
That is to say, the supply is carefully match to suit ONLY the local maxima, so *ANY* deployment of a larger scale will exceed supply, and cause a spike in prices.
Continuing to capitulate to this paradigm will only ensure that the bare minimum necessary buildout occurs, and only in dense, high profit areas. (Shock! Exactly what's happening right now!)
An overwhelming, massive demand for infrastructure hardware with government teeth behind it, like a national broadband plan would produce, would drive down the cots of city deployments by orders of magnitude, because supply would then outstrip metro demand in the years following the buildout. This means better infrastructure in the cities for a radically reduced cost over what would have been needed if the plan had not gone forth.
The real problem: the local maxima results in the highest benefit:cost ratio for the ISPs and wire providers. The reduced costs of buildout couple directly to increased maintenence costs, which harms their profit margins. This makes it "toxic". Not impossible, just less desirable than the BS cozy gig they currently enjoy.
The fallacy you employ, is assuming status quo prices in the face of mandatory increases in production. Economics of scale dictates this is flat out false. (Assuming of course, that the fed grows a pair, and prevents the telcos from simply inhaling the money and doing nothing, like they did in the 90s.)
The ideal solution to the problem, is to provide an ultimatum:
Build out the network, at our timetable, or lose your local franchise rights in favor of startups that will.
Do that, and shit will get done, and affordably.
I agree! I just take exception to the "well, move to the city then! MEH!" Attitude.
I have several reasons why the broadband plan (if done right, something I have low confidence of, given the quality of our government administration) should be supported, if nothing else, in principle:
1) the current complaint by ISPs about infrastructure deployments, is that they are expensive. Their model of servicing ONLY large metro areas only einforces this cycle, because it undermines cost reductions from economy of scale.
A massive nation wide buildout would create insane demand, followed by ramped up production to meet that demand, followed by radically reduced prices once the buildout is made. This will make infrastructure renovation in urban areas considerably less expensive after the plan, than they would have been without it. This is for things like optical fiber, MTUs, and other specialist backbone equipment, not to mention other components on the downtream end, that are still copper based.
2) as stated, the direct benefit is a wealthier, more prosperous nation overall, with reduced barriers to entry in other aspects of american life. Improved educational opportunities for rural born residents to actually have skillsets that would be useful in urban environments should they decide to move, etc.
The "what do *i* get, HUH!?" Mantra is short sighted, ignorant, and systemically destructive.
The act passed in the 30s, but the buildout didn't happen overnight. Most of the infrastructure placed to comply with that law came in the 40s and 50s.
The really sad part, is that without the rural electrification act, the people growing food in the US in rural counties would likely *STILL* not have basic electrical and wired telephone services, and the very pundits complaining about the proposed broadband equivalent, would be the most vocal about the issue. (Specifically, spouting the same arrogant ass vapor about how if those people want electricity and telephone service, that they should just move to the city!)
How do I know this? I grew up in such a county, where 90+% of the land allotments are farmland, and the "cities" are fewer than 10k residents. The state of the power distribution system? Apalling. (If one of those precious cities these people go on about had service that interrupted power 50+ times a day, and had deleterious line noise 100% of the time that requires a line conditioner like where I grew up, they would be demanding the government "do something.") Telephone service? Laughable, and NOT maintained. Last I checked, there were still wire boxes from the 1950s, which only went in because of said act, still in active service, rusting away underneath hedgerows.
The ONLY reason that such places even *GET* such service at all, is because of that bill.
The people who bitch about "subsidizing the 'rich' lifestyles of rural people" would spout the exact same claptrap had the rural electrification act not passed, and was being discussed now, even though the 'rich' people they try to demonize would be using kerosine lanterns for light, lack any kind of climate control in their homes other than open windows and a fireplace (it takes electricity to run a furnace. Something has to power the thermostat, and the house blower.), and would be just a few shakes above 2nd or 3rd world shithole in livability.
But they would damned well expect to find produce and beef at their supermarets.
The unpleasant reality that the "people who live out in the country are rich!" Fallacy fails to address? The average pay per year for rural residents is at or below 50k. With kids. Eg "at or below poverty line" if they lived in the city that they rail about so incessantly.
Yes, I'm a bit bitter about the issue. Because it pisses me the fuck off whenever I hear "move to the city then!" As an excuse.
The real reason those fucks say that?
Because by forcing more people into the already overcrowded city, the stand to benefit by that newcomer's taxes. They may not give it the rational thought to completely arrive at that conclusion consciously, but that is basically the crux of it. "What do *I* get out of the deal?"
You get an america that isn't divided into economic disparites like fucking china, where you have people with broadband internet and moder housing in the cities, and people living in fucking mud huts on the farmland that can't even write. That's what assholes.
The reason why rural america isn't like rural china? Acts like the electrification act, and now, proposals like the broadband act. Straight up, 100%. There were people without running water or indoor toiletry in the rural US in the 1950s, when that bill passed! The forced buildout *greatly* improved america.
"Move to the city!" Indeed, assholes. I suppose you would say that to poor chineese people too, wouldn't you?
The only way this would ever work:
Non human servators.
As long as it is *required* for humans to work, and not optional, the "work for betterment of humanity" angle can never work.
Basically, we need soul-less, emotionless, and thankless machines to do those jobs that nobody wants to do.
Humans have to become "irrevelavent" to the maintenance and operation of the gears and cogs of mass production and infrastructure as anything other than the source of innovation. (That is to say, a mega plague could sweep the planet and extinct all human life, and the machines would continue on, repairing empty houses, growing food that won't be eaten, and maintaining themselves, each other, and all the physical social infrastructure. Human involvement is not necessary for "the system" to function.)
Until we have machines that fill this role, the proposal will never work, as cited.
When such machines DO become available, then there would no longer be a need for money, or wealth.
Every time I see a heavily redacted document like that, I can't help but pretend it's a madlib.
"Opinion number M-9458985 needs to be kept secret because it would expose hillary clinton as being a militant lesbian feminist which is a very serious allegation that has been confirmed by Janet Reno and Madaline Allbright as well as the following independent intelligence sources: NSA, CIA, FBI, and select members of the LGBT community . If this opinion were to be made public it could easily have the following horrible consequences: including, but not limited to, threats to her safety while engaging in "diplomatic activities" in countries and territories of the middle east, threaten her viability as a DNC politician for presidential candidacy, and subject her to ridicule in the popular press.
Feel free to put anything else you like in the blanks instead!
Seriously though, what we need are well defined categories and adjectives to take the place of [redacted] in these filings. That way it isn't a black bar where text was, but a general filing category describing the kind of content that goes there. That way it wouldn't become a farsical madlib.
The main crux behind "security through obscurity...", is the same behind other types of "ignorance is bliss" arguments.
Using the changing room at Dillards to try on a suit, that has a peep cam installed, takes pictures of your junk regardless of if you know about it or not.
In fact, I you have been warned that the changing booth has a peep cam, you can mitigate your risk of having your dick on somthingawful, by either not using the changing room, or by putting gum over the lens.
If you don't know about the camera, THAT'S when you have the most problem with people being crotch cammed.
If Dillards KNOWS about the crotchcams, but can't easily remove them and make the booths camera free, but fails to inform their patrons and ask that they forgo the use of the changing booths until they are fixed and safe, what does that say about the store?
Again, being crotched cammed unawares doesn't mean you weren't crotchcammed.
Same holds true for security exploits in computer systems. These days, you really should expect to be getting crotchcammed regardless, and be ever vigilant. It isn't tinfoil hattery. Just put an unpatched XP fresh install on the net, and watch the fireworks.
Companies refusing to disclose threats to the public only puts them at increased risk.
Let's see, AC.
I could very well pull one of the blackhat user credential database dumps (many is better!), cross reference that plaintext stream, and get a surprisingly narrow view into already compromised accounts that use that password.
This is because users are, by and large, dumb, lumbering creatures of habbit, and reuse usernames and passwords. when you spread the attack surface over many disparate systems like that, you make yourself far more vulnerable than you realize.
While I can't garantee that your precious account will be in a combined assortment of clandestine database dumps like that, it gives me a very good starting point in hunting your ass down.
The nonsequitor there, is in asserting that because the whitehat hasn't disclosed his findings, that others haven't also independently found the hole, and been more mum about it.
Which is more profitable for a person who makes their living by stealing company secrets, laundering money through wire fraud, or selling stolen identity information?
Using an exploit that has been publicly discosed, and thus, everyone is super paranoid about it, and actively trying to plug it-- OR-- a nice little treasure trove of privately discovered exploits that aren't public knowledge that you can quiety switch to once the hole you are currently using gets discovered?
"Saving face" for the company fascilitates the real blackhats by keeping admins and users ignorant of the threat.
All public disclosure does is make real blackhat attackers silently move to their next vector, and cause a spike in script kid activities. (And of course, make the software vendor look bad.)
I never said I believed in "unbeatable protection". That's a strawman. I basically said that "out of sight, out of mind!" Is not a proper risk mitigation practice. Most certainly NOT the same thing as professing a belief in perfect security.
Proper keypair generation attempts to make it more costly for the attacker to profit from the action of hacking, and actually demonstrates this fact for them, should they try anyway.
Shitty obscurity based half-assery fakes being strong, to detur attempts, but fails easily on inspection. Something like using a password to XOR a file, and calling it "encrypted.", or doing what sony did and reusing the sae salt over and over again, completly defeating the purpose of the salt in the process.
Relying on "don't tell anybody! We'l get to it eventually, and if you don't tell, nobody will find out!" Is bullshit, which is what typically happens with so called "responsible disclosure." I have heard of serious exploits hanging around for YEARS after being "responsibly disclosed."
I understand that you can't fix the hole instantly, and that the patch needs to be tested to make sure it doesn't poke another hole elsewhere. However, informing the people at the most risk, (customers), that they need to take some mitigating actions to reduce the threat, and to watch for signs of exploit until the patch is ready is what is the responsible thing for the software vendor to do. NOT hide the exploit and try to forget about it, while less scrupulous crackers silently use it in combination with other exploits to commit fraud, steal company prividleged information, steal user persona data, build botnets, and worse, while pretending that "it won't happen, because nobody squealed!"
PS3 encryption== security through obscurity. (That salt doesn't need to ACTUALLY be random--each and every time-- does it? Cause, that would be a pain to implement!)
PROPER key pair generation == impossible to realistically derive the secret key from the public key and the payload, due to addition of true random salt. (Where "reasonable" means within the attacker's lifetime.) There simply is not enough information to derive all the factors to refactor the secret key. This is by design, and is considerably different from a simple password in implementation.
In other words, you are being specious, and are downplaying that the security involved with proper encryption is most definately not "if nobody looks, nobody will see!" Type security.
"Herp! He said a commonly used phrase, and I tooked exceptshun tuh dat! Hur-hur, so I calleded him an idjut and a mohron and stuffs! He coulndna poshibly know what dat phraseology thimgy rully means, like I'z does!"
Seriously, that's what you sound like when you say such dumbassery.
Security through obscurity is no security at all.
A security hole is a security hole. A hole that is not widely known about is not in any credible sense "safer" than one with a demonstration exploit posted on mailing lists.
I would rather that news of exploitable security holes be widely published, so that mitigating secondary security blocks can help cover the hole, and reduce the attack surface as soon as the exploit is discovered. While you can't recompile the kernel on day-0, you CAN filter network traffic, isolate unprotected systems, and take other affirmative actions to safeguard company and private data from unauthorized persons, and prevent the silent execution of malicious software early.
The problem one runs into there, is that most software out there today is not so much "secure", so much as it actually is analogous to a block of aged swiss cheese. Hardened in some places, and totally see-through in others. Managing many disparate suites of software packages means dealing with, and mitigating the risks, of a great, great many peepholes.
But again, a security hole is a security hole, and security through obscurity is no security at all. Wishful thinking that "if nobody says anything, then its perfectly safe to let slide for now!" Puts systems, data, and people at risk for the sake of convenience.
Look at the fallout of the near miss between that german drone aircraft and a small passenger plane that just came to light. Secrecy of the problem does not make the problem go away, and hiding the risks from people (for any reason) who are at risk is beyond inconscionable.
Those are only good for use as coasters!
Me? I roll with the AOL floppy disks! Premium MO disks, that just need a little bit of tape put in the corner! After you use the first one to get "On-Line" access, you can use the additional floppies they keep on sending to put all those newsgroup binaries on! The RAR files are conveniently 1.44mb in size even!
Translation: Invent the wheel many many times! Don't you DARE share the data on wheels with others without first getting permission to replicate data from the spoke makers, and rim makers!
Fuck off AC. Look at the internet as a model on how unfettered data proliferation prevents biases from dominating information use. (What's that barbara striesand? That pictue of your beach house is STILL on the internet? Fancy that!) Allowing researchers to share and vet each of these databases you want them to all make independently is EXACTLY how this technology should be used, BECAUSE it prevents usedful data from being hushed up, or forgotten, and gives that data its due. The scientists that created the data want the data shared. The scientists that ewant the data, want it shared.
The only group that does NOT want the data shared, is the publishing industry, because if the data leaves their grimy little fingers, they can't charge rent.
That's the real issue here.
Most of that sum (people) however, would be completely incapable of sustaining themselves.
Take New York, for instance. Millions of people, living in a very dense urban environment, totally dependent upon complex social heirarchies for labor, water, transport, and food distribution from outside localities. Those people would most certainly perish. (The few that have the luxury of rooftop gardens would be under continual threat of brutal crackdowns by just the other tennants in their buildings, and those small gardens would never be able to sustain the city. Throw into that, the destruction of those few production centers via fires, and the deaths of the few who know how to actually grow food instead of buying it at the store, and you quickly have a very serious problem. For a recent eye-opener, look at the LA riots. That was over the brutal beating of a man by local police officers due to something as innane as skin color. Imagine the riots over food distribution, and percieved injustices and subsequent mob reprisals! New York would be burning in days.)
Then you have the continued ecologica uphevals from everyone and adam trying to beat down the doors to the few remaining agreas that are still halfassedly habitable, (like, building houses!) And the situation spirals even more radically out of control.
I don't think you really comprehend the real gravity of what a GLOBAL ecological catastrophe really represents, with a global population as large as ours is.
Humanity *barely* survived the iceage, when we numbered well under 1 billion globally. (Closer to a few million.) This time we would have 7bn, on top of the adverse conditions, all competing to be the survivors. The unburied dead would promote serious issues with plagues, the basic resource shortages would ensure that healthcare would be a far lower priority, and on top of that, you would have batshit people rallying the troops and destroying what's left in mad dash efforts to control it.
I would rather be trapped with "that guy" in a tiny metal box than endure *that* hell.
As for who is going? It's anyone who can pay the admission fee, which is adjusted to all world currencies. It's the 97%, not the 1%. Just that a member of the 1% believes they can get richer by fascilitating the effort.
I agree that it is reprehensible to wrote off the earth and fly away. But high ideals often have bad consequences too. I am a utilitarian. I see utility in having a self sustaining martian colony. I don't really care how it gets funded. Anyone who goes to live in that colony will have nothing but endless hard work and suffering. Going to mars won't be a golden parachute. It will just be a hedged bet against extinction, however slim the margin. In all reality, a 1%er wouldn't be able to HANDLE living on mars anyway.
They wouldn't have 9 billion people outside, unable to care for themselves, looking for what they have, and willing to burn their colony down to the ground to get it, for starters.
Additionally, a self-sustaining colony would not be dependent upon the earth for resources, and as such, would nto be resource dependent upon the earth, so a breakdown of earth's economic and production infrastructures would simply not affect them in any way. The basic requirement for your reprisal is that the martian colony is completely at the mercy of supply shuttles. That is financially unfeasible even without a global crisis, of any magnitude. If you insist on holding that position, no wonder a martian colony looks retarded!
Providing the martian colonists with everything they need to provide for themselves (since despite what you may think, there most certainly *IS* atmosphere on mars, and it would be imminently useful for martian colonists as-is, just not for human breathing, and as such, the colony habitat will not be a closed resource economy! Just sintering the regolith will release oxygen gas because of the perchlorates present, for instance. The curiosity rover's drill sample shows high nitrogen content in the stones sampled, so that is an obtainable resource as well. All the vital materials are availale on site on mars.)
When you aren't having to worry about if the people living "just over there" are going to come kill you for the cabbages you grew, you can spend much more of your time making life better for yourself and others.
The costs of sending people to mars will be outrageous, but that is being privately funded by private enterprise, and is already budgeted. This means that if there is going to be theft and raping and murdering, it will be inside the *ONLY* habitat structure on the entire planet, and would occur regardless of earth conditions. Mars One is performing psych evaluations prior to sending people, and is unlikely to send batshit people.
You don't get that luxury in a post apochalypse.
Certainly.
Now, calculate that your average human requires approximately 2 liters of water daily for proper renal function (though they often do drink less, and it is unhealthy.) Also factor in the scarcity of the material on mars, and the feasibility of sustainable agricultural activities without that large quantity of water.
Now, let's also think about the secondary particles generated when heavy and complex lead neuclei are exposed to iron neculei traveling at near C, and the subsequently exponential impact that this secondary radiation will have as the shielding becomes more and more radiological from constant exposure.
In other words, yes, water has serious issues. You still have to bring it with you if you are really serious about a martian colony. There is no discussion there. You HAVE to take it. It isn't optional. Since you already have to tae it with you, using the absurd cost to orbit it as a canard is moot. Adding the water AND the lead will always cost more than launching just the water.
The water does not have the same problem with producing dangerous secondary radiation, and does not become radioactive itself at near the same rate as will the lead rad shield. The water is already required, and is not optional.
Why not just use the water, then?
You can resolve the "water expands, dumbass!" Problem by freezing it already prior to launch. This also makes it much safer to transport in the event of a micrometeorite puncturing the containment vessel, and believe it or not, ice can be quite insulating, and can serve other functions for regulating the capsule's environment.
If you are going to demand the kitty cat, you must also demand the swivveling chair, and the doomsday deathray aimed at the earth!
A miniatureized clone of yourself wouldn't hurt either!
That's a pretty profound jump, to state that I don't take climate change very, very seriously, and have used it only because it was convenient as an argument.
Far the contrary, in fact. I believe that it is a very dangerous thing, and that the ensueing chaos associated with food and energy shortages as people attempt to live in an environment that no longer has the human carrying capacity of former generations will definately result in wars, precious few resources squandered on ensuring that only "americans" (insert whatever group most floats your boat here. I'm not picky.) Will be the "haves", and damn all everyone else. I fully expect bullshit like scorched earth policies to be vividly and bombastically be discussed, because of the gravity of that kind of environment, and expect true reason and sensibility to have flown the coop long before.
Our chance to avert the disaster was 20 years ago. We blew it, because it was much more profitable to keep on doing what we were doing before, and to foofoo the data and castigate the science and scientists behind it instead.
The data shows we are now beyond the tipping point. The point of no return has been crossed. Signs are showing up everywhere, and it can't be denied anymore (though many still try anyway.)
The biggest threat will be other people. To me, it would be comforting to know that at least somewhere else in the solar system, a group of people would be huddling in a metal shell growing tomatoes instead of shooting other people, raping other people, and stealing shit as society comes down around all around everyone on the earth.
The calamity is already started. No shelters on earth will be built. There will be worldwide disasters, and instead of working to resolve the proble, people will look for who to blame.
There is a long body of evidence to support humanity behaving in this fashion, as resource collapse has been a recurring thread in human civilizations over the ages. Up until now, those collapses have never been global in scale, however.
This is very much an "act now" moment. This is an achivable goal. I hope they succeed. Fixing the fuckup we have caused on earth is far harder than building a martian greenhouse, and really would be science fiction terraforming. At least on mars, the colonists won't have armed robbers demanding their food.
The earth is in store for some very dire shit indeed, and that doesn't even count what the unknown variable of mass animal and plant form extinctions the changed climate will introduce for continued human activity on earth. Look at the serious dangers that just losing bees offers.
Even if we 100% stop all burning of fossil fuels right now, the warming trend won't stop, and the coastal methane realse will still occur.
We have well and truly fucked ourselves.
You are forgettng that humans are without question altering the environment of the earth in such a fashion that its continued habitability will become much more difficult in a mere 200 years.
Humans *are* the extinction level event. Or are you a climate change denier, that thinks the 97% consensus in the scientific community is wrong?
The calamity doesn't have to be a big space rock. It could just as easily be runaway methane release from continental shelves, and wild environmental conditions, and be completely man made.
Does the hubris matter, if the structure is built, maintained, and crewed, rather than written off as too expesive?
The whole point of building the mars colony is to build the mars colony, as a life insurance policy that you hope to never cash in on.
If its built, there's no need to pay more: 250 thousand people is enough for a viable population to be sustained, so more people aren't even needed. This is a non-argument.
If you supply those risk takers with tools and plans to help them succeed, then they may well do so. That's the point.
Since they won't be disuaded, and want to go, regardless of the risk, at least capitalize on the effort, rather than sabotaging it.
Making assertions about the difficulties says nothing that was not already known, and is therefore without value. You can dislike that these people have chosen to go anyway, but you shouldn't be so self-righteous that you overtly try to stop them, and force them to spend that money and their lives doing things that in YOUR opinion hold greater value.
Life, lemons. Make lemonade. Don't whine and bitch that you can't have the mountain dew you want instead.
That is to say, your argument is mypoic, and ignores all the politics involved in creating such a series of organized structures on earth, all the political dick waving over who's in charge of what, and of course, the fact that serious plans to go fucking build a martian colony are seriously on the table, and has real backers, and real offers to be pulled off, and isn't a hypothetical petard that can't be handwaved away.
You can arrogantly assert that they are dumb and will all die, but that's just your opinion.
I prefer to contemplate what they would need to do to succeed, and offer those ideas, so that their chances of success increase.
Unlike an earth based shelter network, a martian one can just be abandoned in 4 years due to a newly elected president deciding to cut the last administration's projects. If it gets built, and occupied, it will stay built, and occupied.
No earth based solution offers that level of commitent to the project, simply becase the shelters don't provide immediate needs to their inhabitants, and would therefor be seen as collossal wastes of taxpayer resources that could be used for (feeding ethipian babies, fighting crime, stopping child pornographers, stopping internet media pirates, fighting terrorists, %boogeyman_policy%, etc.).
Because humaity will have to fucking EVOLVE before those problems go away, and mars one is RIGHT FUCKING NOW, *and* can't be terminated because somebody has a dick waving fetish to the detriment of all humanity, I see the mars one offer as fantastically more appealing than your bullshit canard.
If you'l excuse the harsh language.
Wait, what's this?
http://applicants.mars-one.com/
A website with almost a quarter million people wanting to go build a martian colony, and willing to pay with their own money and lives for the mere opportunity!?
Clearly, that website and that project must be a pure fabrication! It couldn't possibly be real, when no such effort to create thse "oh so much easier!" Earth shelters has even been seriously proposed by *ANY* nation capable of carrying out such a plan!
Because that would mean that a martian colony is clearly more favored than an earth fallout bunker, and has a higher chance of being built, and that would totally ruin your argument!