My impulse is, of course, to be greatly concerned about my privacy with this. Not a bad thing, altogether. But I've done some looking around at what other people have to say on the matter.
On the one hand, I've heard a lot of folks on the radio and read no few columns by smart people saying we need to be paranoid. Rational paranoia's not a bad thing, I think. Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
On the other hand, another writer I like to read has pointed out that, as far as political, legal, and material freedoms goes, we're a lot more free than we have ever been in history, and the very fact that we have a number of people who are incredibly sensitive to violations of civil liberty means that civil servants have to keep on their toes about it. And the Heritage Foundation has published a memo explaining that DARPA's Total Information Awareness isn't quite what Safire of the NYT said it is, and it's not quite what everyone (rightly) fears.
Still, I won't budge from my first point. A little rational paranoia is a healthy thing to have. I've been doing my best to be 'safe', and to teach good habits to my not-so-tech-savvy friends. Now that I've got most of my family Back Home using PGP-friendly e-mail clients, I'm going to take some time to show them just how easy it is to use these nigh-impossible-to-forge signatures when I visit for the holidays.
I would think (or at least, would hope) that one could make a solid arguement that the private citizens, as the Consumers, are an integral part of the marketplace. That, in fact, the marketplace exists for the Consumer as much as for the Producer. And, through market forces, Consumers should have the power to shape the behavior of Producers
In the Brave New World we've been slowly creeping towards, the trend is that the wants of the Consumer should be shaped around the demands of the market, rather than vice versa.
Unfortunately, Red Tape is like Spaghetti Code. It's very good at securing jobs for those who aren't confident in their competence.
This includes both career politicians of both major parties who survive by spin and civil service employees who surrender their political souls to the unions. It's not in the interest of these people for the legal voting population to understand what really goes on in the halls of government.
I had a professor once who, when asked if he would be grading a test on a curve, would answer that, since spacetime is curved due to gravity, most likely, yes....
I'm in even worse trouble. I can't claim to have had my slashdot username (also a RL nickname) since birth. I hope I need never fear the wrath of the dairy industry.
I work in a company that deals with medical claims information, so I've followed all of this 'medical privacy' legislation with some interest. And what I can tell you is, it's a joke. The very first HillaryCare plan was a joke, the HIPPA and other privacy legislation that got passed under Clinton was a joke, and it's still a joke. It's just a slightly less scary joke now.
Under Hillary's plans, your doctor would be limited in giving out information to all third parties... except for the government. He/she would have to pass copies of all confidential patient records on to the feds. The 'privacy' aspect would be in putting up hoops that the doctor would have to jump through before passing any information necessary to billing on to a third-party billing agency. And then, that billing agency would have to jump through hoops before passing information on to your insurance company. And, finally, your insurance company would have a load of hoops to jump through, plus a barrel of red tape, before actually giving your doctor money to pay for his services.
And again, I reiterate. The only entity which would receive your medical information without jumping through hoops would be the FBI. What's more, your doctor could be thrown in jail for not giving up all medical records. All medical records, not just records for specific patients. No judicial warrant necessary. And your doctor could also get thrown in jail for telling you about this.
The hoops for getting billing information from doctor to insurance provider are still there, but 'allowances' have been made given the fact that, under many circumstances, a lot of those requirements are unreasonable in practice, for technical reasons. But there are hoops to jump through just to get the allowances.
Just my experience with 'medical privacy' legislation.
I'm not so sure that spam-the-mail wouldn't survive as well. I've a sneaking suspicion that those e-mail mass marketers have got to be some sort of subspecies of cockroach.
Only citizens may vote, as only citizens have SSN's Correction: Only citizens and illegal aliens with stolen/forged SSNs. And dead people whose SSNs haven't yet been taken off the books.
Deceased people do not have a SSN that is valid, and thus cannot vote. This might work if the Social Security administration could keep accurate records. But Newsday.com has reported that about 19,000 Americans a year are prematurely declared dead by the SSA. For me, this doesn't inspire much in the way of confidence.
And then, there's still the problem of identity theft. All someone needs to do is steal my pin and SSN, and they've got my vote. The large majority of citizens that don't bother to register wouldn't be that much more likely to vote under this new system, and they'd be the last ones to notice that their vote had been 'hijacked'.
Basically, I've got a few criteria for a good voting system: 1) The more local, the better. If I recognize the volunteers at the polling station as people from my community that I know and trust, I'm not worried. 2) Registration is a must. If you don't care enough about your civic duty to take five minutes registering over the phone, or filling out a form when you get a library card, you probably don't care enough to get educated about the issues. Better voter turnout is great and all, but more voters can't beat higher voters. 3) I want the poll workers to verify my face against a photograph. No matter what you give me, PINs, public key encryption, passwords, and so on, there's still no way to verify that I am who I am that can beat seeing me face-to-face.
Would open-sourcing really increase the confidence of people in the system? Open source or no, you still have to deal with the problem of dead people and non-citizens casting ballots. If you can't trust the humans running the polls, the technology doesn't matter. The election officials at my polling place this last time around were polite and professional, so I don't think there was any malevolent tampering with my vote.
The other side of the question is, is open-sourcing necessary to trusted security in all situations? Granted, in programming, the answer is 'yes' more often than not. But voting isn't strictly about programming.
My state switched to all-digital voting machines this election, and the voting machines all had the 'Die Hard' logo on them. Yup, the same company that produces security systems for banks and military bases. I wouldn't expect them to open-source the security for my local bank, though. As a matter of fact, I'd probably be pretty ticked off if they did. And, since they've got a solid reputation, I've got a pretty high level of confidence that there was no mishandling of my vote through accident of technology.
I'll rant on about the dangers of true Democracy another time.;-)
Securing the borders is a very tricky issue, you're right. The current situation is a choice between shutting down the borders completely (bad option) or keeping the system we've got now, which is absolutely useless. It's my optimistic hope that someone with brains and guts who can find a better option will get appointed to just the right job. Since politics is involved, I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not so sure this country would last more than a month without fuel-based transport, though. Transportation's gotten to be pretty integral to life. These days, a supply part from Taiwan can be unloaded from the docks in California on Monday, on a truck by Tuesday, sent to a factory halfway across the country by the end of the week. There it can be put into a finished product, which in turn can be sent to anywhere in the country before another week has passed. Not all stores and businesses have gone the Amazon.com way, but some industries have really stopped keeping their inventories local to their production or shipping centers.
And then there's life-essential perishables. Blood, platelets and organs for transfusions and transplants, for example. And the strongest demand for these things isn't always very close to the most-visited donation centers.
Quickly, the economy would slow to the point where oil is no longer required to make it run
I'm mentally picturing a society with no oil. I could live with it. But then, I grew up doing things like backpacking and hiking, and I enjoy a good walk. With winter coming along, though, it's a good thing I live in the south. Still, without the international commerce, I'd miss Korean and Thai food, and so much for my hopes of getting a game cube.
Standard of living for everyone in the country would actually increase.
Well, yeah, the average might rise. Of course, those who can't fend for themselves without grocery stores, or who are medically dependent on oil-based products and ambulances, that population will drop significantly, but hell, we could live without them. No need to be concerned with their standard of living if they aren't living.
Not trying to troll or flame you here, Iguana, don't get me wrong. Just holding up a broken mirror to your vision. I'm generally an optimist, but I've gotten into the habit of taking every idealist situation and asking myself, what's the worst that could happen.
I keep picturing another time the industries in the United States nearly stopped international trade, and the economy *very* quickly slowed down, back in the 1930's....
I really only checked out books from the Fayetteville library once, one summer when they were moving to a new building and they were letting folks check out books by the armload, for an extended period of time, just so they'd have less to move.
I filled the back seat of my car with teenage-entertainment sci-fi and fantasy.
For the most part, though, I visited the PTC library when I was growing up.
Thomas Paine's Common Sense, commonly regarded as one of the most influential writings of its time, was first published anonymously. The publisher knew who the author was, and people of his time found out if they really wanted to, but Paine didn't claim any credit up front.
I've been reading it lately, as part of a compiled volume of Paine's best writings. I find it really interesting to read some of the thoughts that were influential in the forming of my government. And, in the process, I'm learning a few things about the history of British government that I didn't know, either....
I've been taking my time reading through it, though. Some very deep words to think about. So it's probably a good thing I didn't borrow this book from the library.
A massive win for Microsoft? I'm not so sure. IANAL, and this is a lot to read, but a few things have struck out at me here....
Microsoft shall not retaliate against or threaten retaliation against an OEM... because it is known to Microsoft that the OEM is or is contemplating... shipping a Personal Computer that (a) includes both a Windows Operating System Product and a non-Microsoft Operating System, or (b) will boot with more than one Operating System
Good news for anyone who wants another chance at ordering a Linux-loaded Dell.
Microsoft shall not enter into any agreement relating to a Windows Operating System Product that conditions the grant of any Consideration on an ISV's refraining from developing, using, distributing, or promoting any software that competes with Microsoft Platform Software or any software that runs on any software that competes with Microsoft Platform Software, except that Microsoft may enter into agreements that place limitations on an ISV's development, use, distribution or promotion of any such software if those limitations are reasonably necessary to and of reasonable scope and duration in relation to a bona fide contractual obligation of the ISV to use, distribute or promote any Microsoft software or to develop software for, or in conjunction with, Microsoft.
Translation (as I read it): Microsoft can't stop selling Windows to my company, or stop my company from selling Windows-compatible programs, just because that my company wants to make and sell Mac or Linux versions.
Section III.H is really, -really- long to quote, but from what I read, it says that Microsoft will always offer a 'uniform and unbiased mechanism' for such things as changing file associations and setting up third-party programs to do anything "Microsoft Middleware" does. They can't ever make it so that you -can't- substitute WinAmp for Windows Media Player. As a matter of fact, they need to make it idiot-level easy. They also have to make it idiot-level easy to remove all traces of IE, Outlook Express, or MSN Messenger.
And, from what I see in III.I.3, Microsoft can't make their licenses non-transferrable. I can sell you my XP license, and no one will have any room to complain.
They're required to make all APIs used by their Middleware through MSDN or some similar mechanism. Granted, MSDN access is by subscription, so the information won't be free-as-in-beer, but Microsoft can't altogether stop that information from being public.
The enforcement seems to be in the hands of a multi-state committee. Notorious as committees are for not getting things done, still, the states have shown a strong interest in bearing down on MS.
Slashdot Mirror
My impulse is, of course, to be greatly concerned about my privacy with this. Not a bad thing, altogether. But I've done some looking around at what other people have to say on the matter.
On the one hand, I've heard a lot of folks on the radio and read no few columns by smart people saying we need to be paranoid. Rational paranoia's not a bad thing, I think. Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
On the other hand, another writer I like to read has pointed out that, as far as political, legal, and material freedoms goes, we're a lot more free than we have ever been in history, and the very fact that we have a number of people who are incredibly sensitive to violations of civil liberty means that civil servants have to keep on their toes about it. And the Heritage Foundation has published a memo explaining that DARPA's Total Information Awareness isn't quite what Safire of the NYT said it is, and it's not quite what everyone (rightly) fears.
Still, I won't budge from my first point. A little rational paranoia is a healthy thing to have. I've been doing my best to be 'safe', and to teach good habits to my not-so-tech-savvy friends. Now that I've got most of my family Back Home using PGP-friendly e-mail clients, I'm going to take some time to show them just how easy it is to use these nigh-impossible-to-forge signatures when I visit for the holidays.
Warning: Do not taunt Happy Fun Asteroid.
Be quite, you.
(Insert "It's a joke, laugh" icon here.)
I would think (or at least, would hope) that one could make a solid arguement that the private citizens, as the Consumers, are an integral part of the marketplace. That, in fact, the marketplace exists for the Consumer as much as for the Producer. And, through market forces, Consumers should have the power to shape the behavior of Producers
In the Brave New World we've been slowly creeping towards, the trend is that the wants of the Consumer should be shaped around the demands of the market, rather than vice versa.
Unfortunately, Red Tape is like Spaghetti Code. It's very good at securing jobs for those who aren't confident in their competence.
This includes both career politicians of both major parties who survive by spin and civil service employees who surrender their political souls to the unions. It's not in the interest of these people for the legal voting population to understand what really goes on in the halls of government.
I had a professor once who, when asked if he would be grading a test on a curve, would answer that, since spacetime is curved due to gravity, most likely, yes....
I'm in even worse trouble. I can't claim to have had my slashdot username (also a RL nickname) since birth. I hope I need never fear the wrath of the dairy industry.
I work in a company that deals with medical claims information, so I've followed all of this 'medical privacy' legislation with some interest. And what I can tell you is, it's a joke. The very first HillaryCare plan was a joke, the HIPPA and other privacy legislation that got passed under Clinton was a joke, and it's still a joke. It's just a slightly less scary joke now.
Under Hillary's plans, your doctor would be limited in giving out information to all third parties... except for the government. He/she would have to pass copies of all confidential patient records on to the feds. The 'privacy' aspect would be in putting up hoops that the doctor would have to jump through before passing any information necessary to billing on to a third-party billing agency. And then, that billing agency would have to jump through hoops before passing information on to your insurance company. And, finally, your insurance company would have a load of hoops to jump through, plus a barrel of red tape, before actually giving your doctor money to pay for his services.
And again, I reiterate. The only entity which would receive your medical information without jumping through hoops would be the FBI. What's more, your doctor could be thrown in jail for not giving up all medical records. All medical records, not just records for specific patients. No judicial warrant necessary. And your doctor could also get thrown in jail for telling you about this.
The hoops for getting billing information from doctor to insurance provider are still there, but 'allowances' have been made given the fact that, under many circumstances, a lot of those requirements are unreasonable in practice, for technical reasons. But there are hoops to jump through just to get the allowances.
Just my experience with 'medical privacy' legislation.
Guess this means the script kiddies will never get the chance to jump up, kick back, and chow down on Longhorn.
I'm not so sure that spam-the-mail wouldn't survive as well. I've a sneaking suspicion that those e-mail mass marketers have got to be some sort of subspecies of cockroach.
Luckily, calculus hasn't been stolen yet,
I'm sure that there are countless first- and second-year engineering students who are absolutely overcome with relief.
Only citizens may vote, as only citizens have SSN's
Correction: Only citizens and illegal aliens with stolen/forged SSNs. And dead people whose SSNs haven't yet been taken off the books.
Deceased people do not have a SSN that is valid, and thus cannot vote.
This might work if the Social Security administration could keep accurate records. But Newsday.com has reported that about 19,000 Americans a year are prematurely declared dead by the SSA. For me, this doesn't inspire much in the way of confidence.
And then, there's still the problem of identity theft. All someone needs to do is steal my pin and SSN, and they've got my vote. The large majority of citizens that don't bother to register wouldn't be that much more likely to vote under this new system, and they'd be the last ones to notice that their vote had been 'hijacked'.
Basically, I've got a few criteria for a good voting system:
1) The more local, the better. If I recognize the volunteers at the polling station as people from my community that I know and trust, I'm not worried.
2) Registration is a must. If you don't care enough about your civic duty to take five minutes registering over the phone, or filling out a form when you get a library card, you probably don't care enough to get educated about the issues. Better voter turnout is great and all, but more voters can't beat higher voters.
3) I want the poll workers to verify my face against a photograph. No matter what you give me, PINs, public key encryption, passwords, and so on, there's still no way to verify that I am who I am that can beat seeing me face-to-face.
Would open-sourcing really increase the confidence of people in the system? Open source or no, you still have to deal with the problem of dead people and non-citizens casting ballots. If you can't trust the humans running the polls, the technology doesn't matter. The election officials at my polling place this last time around were polite and professional, so I don't think there was any malevolent tampering with my vote.
;-)
The other side of the question is, is open-sourcing necessary to trusted security in all situations? Granted, in programming, the answer is 'yes' more often than not. But voting isn't strictly about programming.
My state switched to all-digital voting machines this election, and the voting machines all had the 'Die Hard' logo on them. Yup, the same company that produces security systems for banks and military bases. I wouldn't expect them to open-source the security for my local bank, though. As a matter of fact, I'd probably be pretty ticked off if they did. And, since they've got a solid reputation, I've got a pretty high level of confidence that there was no mishandling of my vote through accident of technology.
I'll rant on about the dangers of true Democracy another time.
"Can you hear me now? No? Good!"
Securing the borders is a very tricky issue, you're right. The current situation is a choice between shutting down the borders completely (bad option) or keeping the system we've got now, which is absolutely useless. It's my optimistic hope that someone with brains and guts who can find a better option will get appointed to just the right job. Since politics is involved, I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not so sure this country would last more than a month without fuel-based transport, though. Transportation's gotten to be pretty integral to life. These days, a supply part from Taiwan can be unloaded from the docks in California on Monday, on a truck by Tuesday, sent to a factory halfway across the country by the end of the week. There it can be put into a finished product, which in turn can be sent to anywhere in the country before another week has passed. Not all stores and businesses have gone the Amazon.com way, but some industries have really stopped keeping their inventories local to their production or shipping centers.
And then there's life-essential perishables. Blood, platelets and organs for transfusions and transplants, for example. And the strongest demand for these things isn't always very close to the most-visited donation centers.
Quickly, the economy would slow to the point where oil is no longer required to make it run
I'm mentally picturing a society with no oil. I could live with it. But then, I grew up doing things like backpacking and hiking, and I enjoy a good walk. With winter coming along, though, it's a good thing I live in the south. Still, without the international commerce, I'd miss Korean and Thai food, and so much for my hopes of getting a game cube.
Standard of living for everyone in the country would actually increase.
Well, yeah, the average might rise. Of course, those who can't fend for themselves without grocery stores, or who are medically dependent on oil-based products and ambulances, that population will drop significantly, but hell, we could live without them. No need to be concerned with their standard of living if they aren't living.
Not trying to troll or flame you here, Iguana, don't get me wrong. Just holding up a broken mirror to your vision. I'm generally an optimist, but I've gotten into the habit of taking every idealist situation and asking myself, what's the worst that could happen.
I keep picturing another time the industries in the United States nearly stopped international trade, and the economy *very* quickly slowed down, back in the 1930's....
Please tell me I'm not the only one here who thinks this sounds like a villain out of an 80's cartoon. Maybe Space Ghost, or Transformers.
I really only checked out books from the Fayetteville library once, one summer when they were moving to a new building and they were letting folks check out books by the armload, for an extended period of time, just so they'd have less to move.
I filled the back seat of my car with teenage-entertainment sci-fi and fantasy.
For the most part, though, I visited the PTC library when I was growing up.
And, yes, the Georgia Tech library is tops.
Misread the title for a moment there. Thought it was talking about muting keycaps.
I was hoping this would be a cure for IRC shouting.
I always thought that the /. editors were a little quackers. Don't get me wrong, though, I've never accused them of fowl play.
*ducks and runs!*
Thomas Paine's Common Sense, commonly regarded as one of the most influential writings of its time, was first published anonymously. The publisher knew who the author was, and people of his time found out if they really wanted to, but Paine didn't claim any credit up front.
I've been reading it lately, as part of a compiled volume of Paine's best writings. I find it really interesting to read some of the thoughts that were influential in the forming of my government. And, in the process, I'm learning a few things about the history of British government that I didn't know, either....
I've been taking my time reading through it, though. Some very deep words to think about. So it's probably a good thing I didn't borrow this book from the library.
Hmmm. And my Dell shares are up 1.29%.
Dude!
A massive win for Microsoft? I'm not so sure. IANAL, and this is a lot to read, but a few things have struck out at me here....
Microsoft shall not retaliate against or threaten retaliation against an OEM... because it is known to Microsoft that the OEM is or is contemplating... shipping a Personal Computer that (a) includes both a Windows Operating System Product and a non-Microsoft Operating System, or (b) will boot with more than one Operating System
Good news for anyone who wants another chance at ordering a Linux-loaded Dell.
Microsoft shall not enter into any agreement relating to a Windows Operating System Product that conditions the grant of any Consideration on an ISV's refraining from developing, using, distributing, or promoting any software that competes with Microsoft Platform Software or any software that runs on any software that competes with Microsoft Platform Software, except that Microsoft may enter into agreements that place limitations on an ISV's development, use, distribution or promotion of any such software if those limitations are reasonably necessary to and of reasonable scope and duration in relation to a bona fide contractual obligation of the ISV to use, distribute or promote any Microsoft software or to develop software for, or in conjunction with, Microsoft.
Translation (as I read it): Microsoft can't stop selling Windows to my company, or stop my company from selling Windows-compatible programs, just because that my company wants to make and sell Mac or Linux versions.
Section III.H is really, -really- long to quote, but from what I read, it says that Microsoft will always offer a 'uniform and unbiased mechanism' for such things as changing file associations and setting up third-party programs to do anything "Microsoft Middleware" does. They can't ever make it so that you -can't- substitute WinAmp for Windows Media Player. As a matter of fact, they need to make it idiot-level easy. They also have to make it idiot-level easy to remove all traces of IE, Outlook Express, or MSN Messenger.
And, from what I see in III.I.3, Microsoft can't make their licenses non-transferrable. I can sell you my XP license, and no one will have any room to complain.
They're required to make all APIs used by their Middleware through MSDN or some similar mechanism. Granted, MSDN access is by subscription, so the information won't be free-as-in-beer, but Microsoft can't altogether stop that information from being public.
The enforcement seems to be in the hands of a multi-state committee. Notorious as committees are for not getting things done, still, the states have shown a strong interest in bearing down on MS.
Have to see how it goes, I guess.
Did anyone else see this story about a pumpkin computer and immediately think of the Banana Junior 2000?
Hey, there ain't no danger like that good old vaudeville danger! Hollywood? pfft!