We don't have privacy because we don't deserve it.
We don't have privacy because we don't fight for it. Subtle difference. In this political climate, speaking out against the government gets you on the list. Going to a protest gets you on another. Flying a plane, depositing your pay check (if it's too big, or on the wrong date), going to the pharmacy to get cold medication -- you're on a list. buy your groceries? List. Subscribe to a magazine or newspaper? List. check out subversive books at the library? List. Use facebook? Download porn? Check your email? More lists.
All accessible to the government for two reasons: First, people don't know, and two, those who know usually don't care. They might care more if they knew how many innocent people were in jail, or on death row, victims of coincidence and circumstantial evidence gained by such methods. We are moving into a world in which being a statistical anomaly is a criminal offense.
They need to let a free market determine what should be supplied instead of protecting the monopoly.
Free markets led to the Great Depression. Unregulated capitalism leads to mass exploitation, poor working conditions, and boom/bust cycles. A completely unregulated market is a disaster waiting to happen. You need a hybrid system where critical economic infrastructure is protected from wild fluxuations in price, and where there is government oversight to prevent any corporation from monopolizing such infrastructure. We deregulated the financial sector and look what happened - subprime mortgages and a huge housing bubble which later crashed and caused a global recession. We didn't have sufficient oversight on offshore drilling and now the Gulf of Mexico is an ecological disaster.
Free (unregulated) markets don't work. And even if they did, this market was artificially created and now has a few corporations monopolizing the vast majority of the resources, the cost of entry is exorbinant, and there would be no return on the investment for years, possibly decades, once you factor in all the legal challenges and bartering with the thousands of municipalities which have to approve the contracts for new infrastructure to be built. You cannot, after creating such an unbalanced system, simply step back and say "Oops. Well, I'm outa here!"
A more sound economic approach would be taking away the municipalities rights to negotiate said contracts and mandating it be at the county, or state level. This would sharply reduce the number of middlemen at the bargaining table and greatly lower the cost of entry into the market. As well, the federal government could pass legislation mandating that service providers and carriers be separated, allowing anyone to purchase contracts to gain access to the so-called "last mile". And hopefully they won't screw it up like they did with xDSL this time.
Bottom line: Once the government has created a monopoly, either by action or inaction, it needs to step in and dismantle it so that the market returns to equilibrium. This does not happen on its own by simply returning it to an unregulated status, at least not in any reasonable timeframe.
You have a website that has pictures of you, your current whereabouts, mood, who you like, where you live, work, sleep, and every interaction with anyone else has just as much information pulled out and sorted. And you're bothered by the Like this button?!
He will be quite comfortable and safe in my mother's basement.
My basement is far better equipped, and is not in my mother's basement. Though... if you want, I could dress up like your mom. Everybody's got their kink you know.
/. is in trouble now for leaking the US's inability to conduct a succesful DDoS campaign.
I believe that if the US Government wanted to stop Wikileaks, they'd simply bomb the data centers. Electronic attacks like this are not what this government does; It's what its citizens do.
This is the work of some self-described patriot, living in his mother's basement in Montana with a pile of guns and a disused American Flag pinned up to the wall, yelling "ye-HAW!"...
Sad to say, but this is actually progress. Remember the day when only well-educated people knew how to cause major electronic mischief? I suppose it's a sign that technology is becoming increasingly accessible when even the most repulsively stupid amongst us can manage it.
"There is a growing chasm between the enduring public perception of Google's search results as comprehensive and impartial...
Impartiality Checklist [ ] Do they make money doing it? [ ] Do they support a political candidate, viewpoint, or party? [ ] Is what they're doing taxable? [ ] Do they claim to know the truth, as opposed to still searching for it?
Note: If you checked any of the boxes, you can be certain they are not impartial.
My most fun billable hours are spent dealing with technology, but every time I do a risk assessment something else turns out to be more important.
Well, a computer by itself isn't much of a risk. It could start on fire from an electrical short, maybe, or occasionally glitch from a hardware or software fault... but those are pretty small risks. Now, put some idiot at the keyboard and suddenly it's a weapon of mass destruction.
I don't understand how an automated download equals copyright infringement, which from my read of TFA was the central issue. Can someone explain this to me? Because otherwise, quite a few websites are going to be sued for a lot of money for providing links to other websites... something I thought we had moved past as "infringement".
So far, Wikileaks has only released the same things with the same redactions as the New York Times has released with the informed consent of the State Department.
Yes, but nobody would say the NYT was full of evil and unpatriotic... *cough* deep throat *cough*
Is this really a case of 'holding the US to account for its crimes' or just malice, someone's personal agenda to get back at the big bad Americans? So far, it's looking more like the latter. I'm starting to question my former support for wikileaks.
You've been drinking the kool aid a bit heavily. Wikileaks has been careful not to release data that could pose an immediate threat to life or safety. They've been posting things that embarrass the government and affect its public image. And you want to stop supporting them because of this? Wikileaks didn't kill a bunch of brown people in an some country with an unpronounceable name and then pretend it didn't happen. Wikileaks didn't blow away several journalists who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They weren't making comments into the mic, laughing and acting excited that they were gunning down unarmed civilians.
They just told you it happened. Which is something your government (and mine) wouldn't do, and would never do if it had the choice. And all of this has been hidden behind the cloak of "national security". National security only goes so far -- when it is used as an excuse to violate the basic social contract and principles which the government is supposed to be supporting, it is the duty of those who know about this to spread the word far and wide and bring the democratic process into play to fix such systemic problems.
Wikileaks isn't on some quest to destroy the government: It is serving the purpose of saving it from itself, before it becomes completely unaccountable to its citizens and eventually becomes destructive of its own ends.
Having worked for several businesses that have attempted to ban the use of portable media -- it's a pointless endeavor. Anything that connects to a USB port can emulate anything else that can connect to a USB port. I have seen USB flash drives that emulate rewritable CDROMs, etc. And with just a little bit of work, you can use standard HUD devices like mice and keyboards to stream data out at very high speeds to other devices. And nevermind Firewire and it's built-in ability to directly manipulate system memory -- if the port has power, all your memory are belong to us. -_-
There is only one security measure that works in this situation: Air gap. Everything else is window dressing.
And yet, in a competition, saying that you're going to win before the race is over is not looked at as odd or unusual. And I'm not aware of many national anthems that start with "We're Number Two!" Or it could just be the Jobs Reality Distortion Field exhibiting harmonic disturbances due to passing through the Droid Nebula and becoming ionized...
If you remember your history, originally they did. None of this non-sense was happening until private businesses moved in and demanded government protection for their profit margins.
It's a pain now. But if power is abused enough, we'll find DNS servers popping up that are alternatives for censorship-enabled countries like the United States and China.
You know, people are always reluctant for me to touch their computers and install privacy-enhancing software, until I show them how much faster their computer runs without malware, spyware, and pre-installed garbage. After I strip away all the advertisements they see on the web, they're utterly delighted. They want to buy me dinner, or hug me until I choke. They go from skeptics to supporters in a matter of minutes. And then I explain to them how I did it, and ask them to show their friends.
People come to me all the time now asking for the same services: How do I turn off advertisements on my internet? How to I get rid of all these popups trying to sell me crap? And increasingly, people are asking me how they can browse without the government knowing what they are looking at. See, people do read all this crap on CNN; They just feel powerless to do anything about it.
But once they have a community resource willing to show them, suddenly you've got the most unlikeliest of people knocking at your door. Traditional arguments about power and government hold little weight when I can show people how to push a button and make all the bullsh*t go away. No more tracking. No more advertisements. Bamf. Gone. All of it. They're free to use the public resource that is the internet with a peace of mind and just a smidgeon of anonymity and privacy.
You and I, silly people. Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web, or that the government can control the internet, etc.? They are granted power because we give it to them.
If each of you here went over to 10 people's homes and set them up on something like Tor, and showed them how to protect their privacy and avoid malware and advertisement, executives everywhere would be protesting in front of Congress to stop those goddamned citizens from ruining their perfectly profitable business built on exploiting them. That, people, is power. And it is yours, not theirs.
Super Photons, original flavor: Not From Condensate. Regular Photons: From Condensate. Spooky Photons: (Note: contains only about 50% of stated volume)
Slashdot Mirror
We don't have privacy because we don't deserve it.
We don't have privacy because we don't fight for it. Subtle difference. In this political climate, speaking out against the government gets you on the list. Going to a protest gets you on another. Flying a plane, depositing your pay check (if it's too big, or on the wrong date), going to the pharmacy to get cold medication -- you're on a list. buy your groceries? List. Subscribe to a magazine or newspaper? List. check out subversive books at the library? List. Use facebook? Download porn? Check your email? More lists.
All accessible to the government for two reasons: First, people don't know, and two, those who know usually don't care. They might care more if they knew how many innocent people were in jail, or on death row, victims of coincidence and circumstantial evidence gained by such methods. We are moving into a world in which being a statistical anomaly is a criminal offense.
They need to let a free market determine what should be supplied instead of protecting the monopoly.
Free markets led to the Great Depression. Unregulated capitalism leads to mass exploitation, poor working conditions, and boom/bust cycles. A completely unregulated market is a disaster waiting to happen. You need a hybrid system where critical economic infrastructure is protected from wild fluxuations in price, and where there is government oversight to prevent any corporation from monopolizing such infrastructure. We deregulated the financial sector and look what happened - subprime mortgages and a huge housing bubble which later crashed and caused a global recession. We didn't have sufficient oversight on offshore drilling and now the Gulf of Mexico is an ecological disaster.
Free (unregulated) markets don't work. And even if they did, this market was artificially created and now has a few corporations monopolizing the vast majority of the resources, the cost of entry is exorbinant, and there would be no return on the investment for years, possibly decades, once you factor in all the legal challenges and bartering with the thousands of municipalities which have to approve the contracts for new infrastructure to be built. You cannot, after creating such an unbalanced system, simply step back and say "Oops. Well, I'm outa here!"
A more sound economic approach would be taking away the municipalities rights to negotiate said contracts and mandating it be at the county, or state level. This would sharply reduce the number of middlemen at the bargaining table and greatly lower the cost of entry into the market. As well, the federal government could pass legislation mandating that service providers and carriers be separated, allowing anyone to purchase contracts to gain access to the so-called "last mile". And hopefully they won't screw it up like they did with xDSL this time.
Bottom line: Once the government has created a monopoly, either by action or inaction, it needs to step in and dismantle it so that the market returns to equilibrium. This does not happen on its own by simply returning it to an unregulated status, at least not in any reasonable timeframe.
Right... because Bing has been so wildly successful?
Okay, that might have been uncalled for, but it felt really good.
Hmm..how about some type of official licensing required to sell scrap copper and/or other metals.
We do that up here in Minnesota. It didn't work.
You have a website that has pictures of you, your current whereabouts, mood, who you like, where you live, work, sleep, and every interaction with anyone else has just as much information pulled out and sorted. And you're bothered by the Like this button?!
It allows corporations to develop proprietary applications and install them on users' handsets
Any chance the jailbreak comes with the option to disable this functionality?
There is no strategic value in attacking wikileaks that I can see. The damage is done.
He will be quite comfortable and safe in my mother's basement.
My basement is far better equipped, and is not in my mother's basement. Though... if you want, I could dress up like your mom. Everybody's got their kink you know.
/. is in trouble now for leaking the US's inability to conduct a succesful DDoS campaign.
I believe that if the US Government wanted to stop Wikileaks, they'd simply bomb the data centers. Electronic attacks like this are not what this government does; It's what its citizens do.
At least isn't that what the government tells us?
The government also tells you to hide under your desk in the event of a nuclear attack.
This is the work of some self-described patriot, living in his mother's basement in Montana with a pile of guns and a disused American Flag pinned up to the wall, yelling "ye-HAW!"...
Sad to say, but this is actually progress. Remember the day when only well-educated people knew how to cause major electronic mischief? I suppose it's a sign that technology is becoming increasingly accessible when even the most repulsively stupid amongst us can manage it.
"There is a growing chasm between the enduring public perception of Google's search results as comprehensive and impartial...
Impartiality Checklist
[ ] Do they make money doing it?
[ ] Do they support a political candidate, viewpoint, or party?
[ ] Is what they're doing taxable?
[ ] Do they claim to know the truth, as opposed to still searching for it?
Note: If you checked any of the boxes, you can be certain they are not impartial.
My most fun billable hours are spent dealing with technology, but every time I do a risk assessment something else turns out to be more important.
Well, a computer by itself isn't much of a risk. It could start on fire from an electrical short, maybe, or occasionally glitch from a hardware or software fault... but those are pretty small risks. Now, put some idiot at the keyboard and suddenly it's a weapon of mass destruction.
I don't understand how an automated download equals copyright infringement, which from my read of TFA was the central issue. Can someone explain this to me? Because otherwise, quite a few websites are going to be sued for a lot of money for providing links to other websites... something I thought we had moved past as "infringement".
So far, Wikileaks has only released the same things with the same redactions as the New York Times has released with the informed consent of the State Department.
Yes, but nobody would say the NYT was full of evil and unpatriotic... *cough* deep throat *cough*
Is this really a case of 'holding the US to account for its crimes' or just malice, someone's personal agenda to get back at the big bad Americans? So far, it's looking more like the latter. I'm starting to question my former support for wikileaks.
You've been drinking the kool aid a bit heavily. Wikileaks has been careful not to release data that could pose an immediate threat to life or safety. They've been posting things that embarrass the government and affect its public image. And you want to stop supporting them because of this? Wikileaks didn't kill a bunch of brown people in an some country with an unpronounceable name and then pretend it didn't happen. Wikileaks didn't blow away several journalists who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They weren't making comments into the mic, laughing and acting excited that they were gunning down unarmed civilians.
They just told you it happened. Which is something your government (and mine) wouldn't do, and would never do if it had the choice. And all of this has been hidden behind the cloak of "national security". National security only goes so far -- when it is used as an excuse to violate the basic social contract and principles which the government is supposed to be supporting, it is the duty of those who know about this to spread the word far and wide and bring the democratic process into play to fix such systemic problems.
Wikileaks isn't on some quest to destroy the government: It is serving the purpose of saving it from itself, before it becomes completely unaccountable to its citizens and eventually becomes destructive of its own ends.
Having worked for several businesses that have attempted to ban the use of portable media -- it's a pointless endeavor. Anything that connects to a USB port can emulate anything else that can connect to a USB port. I have seen USB flash drives that emulate rewritable CDROMs, etc. And with just a little bit of work, you can use standard HUD devices like mice and keyboards to stream data out at very high speeds to other devices. And nevermind Firewire and it's built-in ability to directly manipulate system memory -- if the port has power, all your memory are belong to us. -_-
There is only one security measure that works in this situation: Air gap. Everything else is window dressing.
This seems like an act of desperation.
And yet, in a competition, saying that you're going to win before the race is over is not looked at as odd or unusual. And I'm not aware of many national anthems that start with "We're Number Two!" Or it could just be the Jobs Reality Distortion Field exhibiting harmonic disturbances due to passing through the Droid Nebula and becoming ionized...
So . . . you want the government to manage it? :D
If you remember your history, originally they did. None of this non-sense was happening until private businesses moved in and demanded government protection for their profit margins.
It's a pain now. But if power is abused enough, we'll find DNS servers popping up that are alternatives for censorship-enabled countries like the United States and China.
You know, people are always reluctant for me to touch their computers and install privacy-enhancing software, until I show them how much faster their computer runs without malware, spyware, and pre-installed garbage. After I strip away all the advertisements they see on the web, they're utterly delighted. They want to buy me dinner, or hug me until I choke. They go from skeptics to supporters in a matter of minutes. And then I explain to them how I did it, and ask them to show their friends.
People come to me all the time now asking for the same services: How do I turn off advertisements on my internet? How to I get rid of all these popups trying to sell me crap? And increasingly, people are asking me how they can browse without the government knowing what they are looking at. See, people do read all this crap on CNN; They just feel powerless to do anything about it.
But once they have a community resource willing to show them, suddenly you've got the most unlikeliest of people knocking at your door. Traditional arguments about power and government hold little weight when I can show people how to push a button and make all the bullsh*t go away. No more tracking. No more advertisements. Bamf. Gone. All of it. They're free to use the public resource that is the internet with a peace of mind and just a smidgeon of anonymity and privacy.
And they do. Oh how they do.
Unfortunately the US government (at least in the US) has pulled ahead in terms of controlling the internet via seizure:
They've pulled ahead in terms of controlling one network resource: DNS. That does not mean control of the internet.
How do we make sure that nobody "controls" the web?
Make it unprofitable.
Who Will Win Control of the Web?
You and I, silly people. Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web, or that the government can control the internet, etc.? They are granted power because we give it to them.
If each of you here went over to 10 people's homes and set them up on something like Tor, and showed them how to protect their privacy and avoid malware and advertisement, executives everywhere would be protesting in front of Congress to stop those goddamned citizens from ruining their perfectly profitable business built on exploiting them. That, people, is power. And it is yours, not theirs.
Super Photons, original flavor: Not From Condensate.
Regular Photons: From Condensate.
Spooky Photons: (Note: contains only about 50% of stated volume)