Err -- my bad, the home-brew ones are not "optical force field" based, as described in the article (similar to original touchscreen technology), they are based on changing with the surface index of refraction when you touch the screen. I suspect the index-of-refraction approach is sensitive to fingerprints, which would be an advantage of capacitive touch or this optical force field.
The "air-canvas" concept is interesting too, and could not be done with either capacitive touch or index-of-refraction.
> I swear we used to have these at work, 10-15 years ago. They were not multi-touch, but that was likely due to the computer interface (serial) and the perhaps more primitive technology at the time. But I'm pretty sure the sensors were infra-red. As I recall, it wasn't necessarily the most accurate system. So, these guys just improved it a bit, or is this truly "revolutionary"?
They have advanced significantly since then, including multitouch and even interactive objects (think 3D icon-pucks you can place on the screen, using their position and the shape of their footprint as input). There is a set of Linux packages for sure, and I think other OS's can be used. They have become the subject of quite a bit of hardware hacking. Not hard to do -- could be a weekend project, around $1k including projector, for a skilled tinker. I'll probably be using my old 1280x768 (WXGA) projector to make one in the next few months.
> So punish anyone who is extremely tall like myself who can't reasonably fit in anything that could possibly be graded in the A band?
Test drive a Scion xB -- I'm 6'2" and have a solid 6" of headroom with the seat two notches forward and the backrest nearly upright. The back seat is equally capacious, you can have two six footers in front and two more six footers in back with nobody's knees touching anything.
As a bonus, the front seats go flat, so I have had 20 eight foot 2x4s inside (on the passenger side) with the hatch closed. It's a tremendously functional vehicle, though admittedly it is funny looking.
"So sure, you believe that it's a good idea to look at things objectively. Not to be tied down to irrational tradition or feelings. To analyze what the true purpose of your actions are. Good things. But these fuckers who made a cult to Ayn Rand are nutcases. I really don't think you can call yourself a "small o objectivist" any more then I can call myself a "small w world-is-roundist"."
Yeah -- you've definitely hit the nail on the head. What is the nature of "-ism", and is the word "objectivist" preloaded? Can small-o objectivist be applied to someone who believes that Ayn Rand's flawed interpretation is worthy for encouraging us to explore objective analysis, or does it inherently imply an acceptance of her flawed interpretation? Is objectivism a matter of the process, or of the doctrine?
"-ism" means identifying a most important thing. I think objectivity may be the most important thing (the natural outcome of anything contrary being large-scale subjugation), but does objectivism mean objectivity-ism, or does it mean Rand-ism?
A fine question, and one to which I do not know the right answer. I've been toying with referring to myself as an efficientist (or more specifically a long-term efficientist), which seems to capture most of my views, but it doesn't have a ring to it.
"Vamosi writes, some of us no longer see the world as human beings have for thousands of years and simply accept whatever our gadgets show us."
Welcome to transhumanism, film at eleven.
Hint: This is a good thing. Writing did the same thing; gave us an external storage mechanism. For the most part, we do not lament the loss of oral tradition.
Not to take a cheap shot... well, maybe precisely to take a cheap shot.
There's a difference between Randroids, Objectivists, and objectivists (small 'o'). Randroids and Objectivists follow a doctrine -- hence, they do not evolve. Perhaps it is not the altruism or resource sharing he was questioning, but the ability for a being to have a different thought than his ancestors.
I am an objectivist, but I find Objectivists to miss the greatest feature of Ayn Rand's work -- that it leads you to think outside the traditional box. If you go down that path just to wind up in Ayn Rand's box, you have gained a little but missed far more.
> Surely the police raided the right people, the owners of the wireless device that facilitated the downloading.
So if somebody walks onto my property, grabs a shovel from my yard, and beats my neighbor to death with it, have I facilitated a murder?
The rest of your post seems reasonable enough. But the phrase "facilitated the downloading" sounds like you are faulting the owners of the open wi-fi node. Open wi-fi nodes are extremely pro-social, despite the fact that bad people exist who misuse shovels and information access.
"you... need to enable location based services if you use apps that require this tracking feature"
"Personally I have never seen an advert that sells a phone in any way that requires location based tracking to be turned on."
The app store and the availability of apps is frequently used to advertise the device.
"I would say yes, even the dumbest idiot could call them selves fully informed about this feature."
Have you ever had this conversation:
Idiot: What do I do next? You: Click on "Check Mail" Idiot: OK, now it shows a dialog that says, "Check Mail Now?" Should I click "OK?" You (banging head on desk): Yes, click "OK."
If you have not, you must not interact with normal humans very often. If you have, you must see that the average idiot is far more retarded than you are giving them credit for.
You are stating that this is an open and shut case. I disagree -- despite the fact that I am a big fan of Android, having written two apps and having received my G1 the day before official release (shipping error, I assume). My disagreement either means that I am an idiot, which I don't think you are supposing (and if you are, you are mistaken), or that this is a point on which rational people can see different perspectives.
If the latter is the case, then this is exactly the sort of petition for redress of grievance regarding a government licensed organization (Google; articles of incorporation and tax identity) that is supposed to be brought before the court system. You may well be proven correct -- I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying that the matter of non-negotiable contracts used to permit for-profit reduction of privacy -- particularly when there is some question of informed consent -- is precisely the sort of issue that cannot be entrusted exclusively to the whims of private interests. These things should be examined by the very system we as a society have designed to examine them.
> A class action is NEVER about making he victims whole.
Are you saying that the above is the case, or that the above is good?
I think most of the discussion is in the context of whether it is good, not whether it is the current state of law -- though your observation that it is the general state of law is an important fact in the greater discussion of whether it is what should be.
If you are saying that the above is good, do you suggest an alternative avenue for making those who were wronged whole, or that it is the least objectionable alternative for them to remain unwhole?
> Following the initial set-up, network location is STILL OFF until you go into settings and enable it. Hence, "disabled by default." If the salesman then proceeded to go into settings and turn on network location without telling the customer, then sue the store, not Google.
Were the purchasers informed at the time of purchase, and at the time they entered into a contract with the provider, that if they did not consent to tracking the device would be incapable of performing the functions used to advertise the device? Were they informed of the option to return the device and void the contract when they reached the screen that told them, in a way that may be confusing to the average idiot, that they would be tracked? Did they even have that option?
> you are given a warning that anonymized information will be collected by Google.
If it's anonymized, then they are not tracking my location. They are tracking the location of an anonymous device. I have only a limited problem with that (they're using my device to generate revenue, without explicitly cutting me in on the action).
> The only way you could be unaware of this "tracking" is if you failed to read the warning before tapping "agree," and that's hardly Google's fault.
Whether it is Google's fault is not our place to decide. What is the scope of the agreement; only for the app the user intends to use it for, or for all apps? How long does that agreement endure? Do the users understand that its duration is what it is? These people are petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. The court decides whether the fault lies with Google, which is a government licensed organization (articles of incorporation and tax identity).
I haven't seen the screen in a long time (zero day G1 (actually arrived a day early), enabled long ago). If you post a screenshot, I tend to think I would agree with you -- but it still would not be my place to decide.
These are sensitive new issues; reducing people's privacy for profit in the context of a non-negotiable contract and the possibility of a lack of informed consent. These issues should be explored in the courts.... Well, they should be explored in something more effective and efficient than the courts, but I don't know that such a mechanism with due authority exists. The free market would handle it with perfect information and perfect competition, but the former is exactly what is in question, and the latter is far from perfect.
The biggest things that cause Firefox to chew up memory are dynamic content. There are a lot of developers out there putting out dynamic web shiny gewgaws who are not thinking about memory management. Installing FlashBlock and NoScript, and only turning on dynamic content temporarily, when you need it, will keep the footprint down dramatically.
"The fact that so many technically inclined Slashdot types are crying 'liability' and 'log everything' is almost as saddening as the fact that our government has pushed us to this. That some guy got thrown down the stairs by a rifle-wielding mob from nothing more than an IP address isn't a sign that we should all lock down our precious connections lest the same happen to us, it's a sign that every fucking one of us should open up our connections and tell the government that we refuse to be intimidated."
Damned straight. We are the sovereigns in this nation, unless we allow ourselves to be subjected.
> Why cannot they just ask the ISP to disconnect infected computers from the network?
Maybe a good idea, maybe not. One risk: If they did this and people did not scream bloody murder, it would be a matter of days until the DoJ started shutting down people suspected of copyright infringement.
Helping people do the pro-social thing, good. Fining them for anti-social behavior (like we do with copyright), good(*). Disconnecting them from the Internet is less obviously good. The Internet is like public sewer systems -- the more people that have access to it, the more our whole society benefits.
Ubiquitous Internet access has significant positive extrernalities. Giving the government the authority to infringe that access -- even for such an obviously pro-social reason -- is fraught with peril.
* the copyright infringement fines are good to the extent that copyright is good, of course, which may be highly debatable in its current incarnation
> In the 60's and 70's, it was assumed that Mach 2+ airline travel would one day be cheap and commonplace.
Sure. On the other hand, in the 60's and 70's they didn't even have a significant chance of getting their nuts fondled before boarding, let alone having a government agent specifically assigned to the task.
As an aside, be a mensch; remember to bring flowers and call him afterwards.
> if you replace "email" with "postal mail", and "a cloud service" with "FedEx", how the bloody hell does that make one damn iota of difference to the Fourth Amendment?
Not that I agree with it, but there are two differences that are in play:
1. The envelope.
2. In-transit versus stored.
I think the former does not hold water because telephone conversations do not take place within an envelope, but are protected. That is when they shift to item 2; phone calls are in-transit, not stored. I think that is a crock, but it is the difference they use.
I put it in roughly the same "Are you freaking kidding me?!?" class as the unitary executive.
> Any statute which purports to give the government access to our electronic communications without a warrant is not a law at all. It's a usurpation.
First, I agree with you. I believe that the spirit and intent of The 4th, and the spirit and intent of The 1st, are being violated. The 4th for obvious reasons. The 1st because the concept of free association and speech is hollow when the government is always listening.
That said, to clarify how the letter is not being violated, at least in their eyes:
"Unreasonable" is interpreted to mean that searches and seizures are Constitutional in any case where you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Since email travels in the clear (mostly) and when you use a cloud service you are giving the information to an untrusted third party, the courts hold that you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
We can wail and gnash our teeth all we want. It is, to me, unquestionably a violation of the principles upon which this nation was founded. And we should. We should make it clear to everyone we know that this is going on, and ask that the policy be changed.
Meanwhile, we (information science professionals, enthusiasts, and hobbyists) should focus on the letter-of-the-law side as well. Restore the reasonable expectation of privacy in electronic communication. Endpoints, content, protocols, everything. It's not easy, but we can do it.
I have a project in that vein I'm working on. We all should.
> Piracy is just the new socially acceptable temper tantrum.
I think they teach this on the first day of business school: If a major portion of your potential customers are throwing the same temper tantrum, and as a result you are not separating them from their money, you are doing it wrong.
If I could pick up my 1,000 favorite albums in 256k or better, no-DRM, for $1,000 total, I would do it in a heartbeat. At $10 each, I have bought exactly one album so far.
The cool thing about digital distribution is that the marginal cost of production (the cost to create one additional item for purchase) is maybe a couple cents. Marketing (ie: iTunes) costs $0.30 per dollar.
Sell one album each to one million people for $10, that's $10m minus $3.5m for marginal production costs -- net $6.5m. Sell one album to 10 million people for $1, that's $10m minus $3.5m marginal production costs -- net $6.5m.
Would lowering the price by 90% increase sales by a factor of 10? Tough to say -- but at $1, most people will buy just about anything -- just look at the crap that sells in the App Store.:)
"So if you call God your Father, live your time as temporary residents on earth in fear. He is the God who judges all people by what they have done, and he doesn't play favorites." - 1 Peter 1:17
"You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?" - Matthew 7:16
Why should we see Satanism as a problem? What are these Satanists doing that is so dangerous?
I dig that they are violating cmds 1, 2, 3 or 1, 2, 4 (depending on your set), but are those really fruit-bearing or acts-related stuff? Now, if they're sacrificing people or something, yeah, that's a problem. But just being Satanists isn't that big an issue. In a court of law based strictly on the new testament, without further evidence, I think I could get them off.
I'm obviously being a little facetious. The point, though, is that saying "Satanism! Boogah BOogah Boogha!" is not a very compelling call to arms. Show me what they have done, show me the fruits they have borne, if you want to get me concerned. I suspect modern Satanism is a lot like most other modern religions -- periodic cosplay with no significant impact on most practitioners daily behavior.
"If you make a habit of punishing "the CEO", then "the CEO" will be a fall guy hired by whoever actually runs the company."
When that happens, we should adapt, and start prosecuting the President, or the Chairman, or the Third Scullion's Maid, or whomever is in charge. The hypothesis that maybe, in the future, "CEO" may not mean senior decision-maker does not have any bearing on whether he should be held accountable now.
We, as a global society, heap a great deal of accolades, accommodations, and compensation on those who successfully guide their corporations through the marketplace. That is as it should be. Likewise, when they turn their corporation into a pirate ship, we should hold them accountable for what happens.
"The proposed settlement bars Google from misrepresenting the privacy or confidentiality of individualsâ(TM) information or misrepresenting compliance with the U.S.-E.U Safe Harbor or other privacy, security, or compliance programs."
I am confused. The article is from the FTC itself, so it seems unlikely that they got this part wrong.
Is this really saying that companies are not, by default, barred from misrepresenting their handling of individuals' information?
That seems so strikingly wrong that I am having a hard time believing that I am reading it correctly.
> Plus, the way things are discriminates against small businesses: GE can afford to hire accountants to eliminate its corporate tax burden, smaller companies can't.
Hear, Hear!
Thank you for pointing out this critical perspective.
> By the time encryption became available, the power was no longer in the hands of geeks and hackers.
Diffie and Hellman published in 1976, RSA in 1978.
Though the reason it was not a priority to our kind makes some amount of sense; when we controlled the Internet we didn't need encryption because we have honor and respect.
Yet it remains that only such honorable people as us were the only chance it ever had. I'm not faulting us for not doing it, I'm pointing out that since we did not, it could never be.
> If (example) Microsoft Outlook had made it a priority, then maybe it would have happened.
Indeed. And if Microsoft had made interoperability a priority, Office would be dead by now. I'm not saying they have any less culpability than us, just that their nature means it was never going to happen that way. Perhaps the same is true of us.
Slashdot Mirror
Err -- my bad, the home-brew ones are not "optical force field" based, as described in the article (similar to original touchscreen technology), they are based on changing with the surface index of refraction when you touch the screen. I suspect the index-of-refraction approach is sensitive to fingerprints, which would be an advantage of capacitive touch or this optical force field.
The "air-canvas" concept is interesting too, and could not be done with either capacitive touch or index-of-refraction.
> I swear we used to have these at work, 10-15 years ago. They were not multi-touch, but that was likely due to the computer interface (serial) and the perhaps more primitive technology at the time. But I'm pretty sure the sensors were infra-red. As I recall, it wasn't necessarily the most accurate system. So, these guys just improved it a bit, or is this truly "revolutionary"?
They have advanced significantly since then, including multitouch and even interactive objects (think 3D icon-pucks you can place on the screen, using their position and the shape of their footprint as input). There is a set of Linux packages for sure, and I think other OS's can be used. They have become the subject of quite a bit of hardware hacking. Not hard to do -- could be a weekend project, around $1k including projector, for a skilled tinker. I'll probably be using my old 1280x768 (WXGA) projector to make one in the next few months.
YouTube Instructional Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4lAxBeCMTM
Lots of links:
http://www.google.com/search?q=multi-touch+table
> So punish anyone who is extremely tall like myself who can't reasonably fit in anything that could possibly be graded in the A band?
Test drive a Scion xB -- I'm 6'2" and have a solid 6" of headroom with the seat two notches forward and the backrest nearly upright. The back seat is equally capacious, you can have two six footers in front and two more six footers in back with nobody's knees touching anything.
As a bonus, the front seats go flat, so I have had 20 eight foot 2x4s inside (on the passenger side) with the hatch closed. It's a tremendously functional vehicle, though admittedly it is funny looking.
"So sure, you believe that it's a good idea to look at things objectively. Not to be tied down to irrational tradition or feelings. To analyze what the true purpose of your actions are. Good things. But these fuckers who made a cult to Ayn Rand are nutcases. I really don't think you can call yourself a "small o objectivist" any more then I can call myself a "small w world-is-roundist"."
Yeah -- you've definitely hit the nail on the head. What is the nature of "-ism", and is the word "objectivist" preloaded? Can small-o objectivist be applied to someone who believes that Ayn Rand's flawed interpretation is worthy for encouraging us to explore objective analysis, or does it inherently imply an acceptance of her flawed interpretation? Is objectivism a matter of the process, or of the doctrine?
"-ism" means identifying a most important thing. I think objectivity may be the most important thing (the natural outcome of anything contrary being large-scale subjugation), but does objectivism mean objectivity-ism, or does it mean Rand-ism?
A fine question, and one to which I do not know the right answer. I've been toying with referring to myself as an efficientist (or more specifically a long-term efficientist), which seems to capture most of my views, but it doesn't have a ring to it.
"Vamosi writes, some of us no longer see the world as human beings have for thousands of years and simply accept whatever our gadgets show us."
Welcome to transhumanism, film at eleven.
Hint: This is a good thing. Writing did the same thing; gave us an external storage mechanism. For the most part, we do not lament the loss of oral tradition.
Not to take a cheap shot... well, maybe precisely to take a cheap shot.
There's a difference between Randroids, Objectivists, and objectivists (small 'o'). Randroids and Objectivists follow a doctrine -- hence, they do not evolve. Perhaps it is not the altruism or resource sharing he was questioning, but the ability for a being to have a different thought than his ancestors.
I am an objectivist, but I find Objectivists to miss the greatest feature of Ayn Rand's work -- that it leads you to think outside the traditional box. If you go down that path just to wind up in Ayn Rand's box, you have gained a little but missed far more.
> Surely the police raided the right people, the owners of the wireless device that facilitated the downloading.
So if somebody walks onto my property, grabs a shovel from my yard, and beats my neighbor to death with it, have I facilitated a murder?
The rest of your post seems reasonable enough. But the phrase "facilitated the downloading" sounds like you are faulting the owners of the open wi-fi node. Open wi-fi nodes are extremely pro-social, despite the fact that bad people exist who misuse shovels and information access.
"you ... need to enable location based services if you use apps that require this tracking feature"
"Personally I have never seen an advert that sells a phone in any way that requires location based tracking to be turned on."
The app store and the availability of apps is frequently used to advertise the device.
"I would say yes, even the dumbest idiot could call them selves fully informed about this feature."
Have you ever had this conversation:
Idiot: What do I do next?
You: Click on "Check Mail"
Idiot: OK, now it shows a dialog that says, "Check Mail Now?" Should I click "OK?"
You (banging head on desk): Yes, click "OK."
If you have not, you must not interact with normal humans very often. If you have, you must see that the average idiot is far more retarded than you are giving them credit for.
You are stating that this is an open and shut case. I disagree -- despite the fact that I am a big fan of Android, having written two apps and having received my G1 the day before official release (shipping error, I assume). My disagreement either means that I am an idiot, which I don't think you are supposing (and if you are, you are mistaken), or that this is a point on which rational people can see different perspectives.
If the latter is the case, then this is exactly the sort of petition for redress of grievance regarding a government licensed organization (Google; articles of incorporation and tax identity) that is supposed to be brought before the court system. You may well be proven correct -- I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying that the matter of non-negotiable contracts used to permit for-profit reduction of privacy -- particularly when there is some question of informed consent -- is precisely the sort of issue that cannot be entrusted exclusively to the whims of private interests. These things should be examined by the very system we as a society have designed to examine them.
> A class action is NEVER about making he victims whole.
Are you saying that the above is the case, or that the above is good?
I think most of the discussion is in the context of whether it is good, not whether it is the current state of law -- though your observation that it is the general state of law is an important fact in the greater discussion of whether it is what should be.
If you are saying that the above is good, do you suggest an alternative avenue for making those who were wronged whole, or that it is the least objectionable alternative for them to remain unwhole?
> Following the initial set-up, network location is STILL OFF until you go into settings and enable it. Hence, "disabled by default." If the salesman then proceeded to go into settings and turn on network location without telling the customer, then sue the store, not Google.
Were the purchasers informed at the time of purchase, and at the time they entered into a contract with the provider, that if they did not consent to tracking the device would be incapable of performing the functions used to advertise the device? Were they informed of the option to return the device and void the contract when they reached the screen that told them, in a way that may be confusing to the average idiot, that they would be tracked? Did they even have that option?
> you are given a warning that anonymized information will be collected by Google.
If it's anonymized, then they are not tracking my location. They are tracking the location of an anonymous device. I have only a limited problem with that (they're using my device to generate revenue, without explicitly cutting me in on the action).
> The only way you could be unaware of this "tracking" is if you failed to read the warning before tapping "agree," and that's hardly Google's fault.
Whether it is Google's fault is not our place to decide. What is the scope of the agreement; only for the app the user intends to use it for, or for all apps? How long does that agreement endure? Do the users understand that its duration is what it is? These people are petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. The court decides whether the fault lies with Google, which is a government licensed organization (articles of incorporation and tax identity).
I haven't seen the screen in a long time (zero day G1 (actually arrived a day early), enabled long ago). If you post a screenshot, I tend to think I would agree with you -- but it still would not be my place to decide.
These are sensitive new issues; reducing people's privacy for profit in the context of a non-negotiable contract and the possibility of a lack of informed consent. These issues should be explored in the courts. ... Well, they should be explored in something more effective and efficient than the courts, but I don't know that such a mechanism with due authority exists. The free market would handle it with perfect information and perfect competition, but the former is exactly what is in question, and the latter is far from perfect.
The biggest things that cause Firefox to chew up memory are dynamic content. There are a lot of developers out there putting out dynamic web shiny gewgaws who are not thinking about memory management. Installing FlashBlock and NoScript, and only turning on dynamic content temporarily, when you need it, will keep the footprint down dramatically.
"The fact that so many technically inclined Slashdot types are crying 'liability' and 'log everything' is almost as saddening as the fact that our government has pushed us to this. That some guy got thrown down the stairs by a rifle-wielding mob from nothing more than an IP address isn't a sign that we should all lock down our precious connections lest the same happen to us, it's a sign that every fucking one of us should open up our connections and tell the government that we refuse to be intimidated."
Damned straight. We are the sovereigns in this nation, unless we allow ourselves to be subjected.
> Why cannot they just ask the ISP to disconnect infected computers from the network?
Maybe a good idea, maybe not. One risk: If they did this and people did not scream bloody murder, it would be a matter of days until the DoJ started shutting down people suspected of copyright infringement.
Helping people do the pro-social thing, good. Fining them for anti-social behavior (like we do with copyright), good(*). Disconnecting them from the Internet is less obviously good. The Internet is like public sewer systems -- the more people that have access to it, the more our whole society benefits.
Ubiquitous Internet access has significant positive extrernalities. Giving the government the authority to infringe that access -- even for such an obviously pro-social reason -- is fraught with peril.
* the copyright infringement fines are good to the extent that copyright is good, of course, which may be highly debatable in its current incarnation
> In the 60's and 70's, it was assumed that Mach 2+ airline travel would one day be cheap and commonplace.
Sure. On the other hand, in the 60's and 70's they didn't even have a significant chance of getting their nuts fondled before boarding, let alone having a government agent specifically assigned to the task.
As an aside, be a mensch; remember to bring flowers and call him afterwards.
> if you replace "email" with "postal mail", and "a cloud service" with "FedEx", how the bloody hell does that make one damn iota of difference to the Fourth Amendment?
Not that I agree with it, but there are two differences that are in play:
1. The envelope.
2. In-transit versus stored.
I think the former does not hold water because telephone conversations do not take place within an envelope, but are protected. That is when they shift to item 2; phone calls are in-transit, not stored. I think that is a crock, but it is the difference they use.
I put it in roughly the same "Are you freaking kidding me?!?" class as the unitary executive.
>> against unreasonable searches and seizures
> Any statute which purports to give the government access to our electronic communications without a warrant is not a law at all. It's a usurpation.
First, I agree with you. I believe that the spirit and intent of The 4th, and the spirit and intent of The 1st, are being violated. The 4th for obvious reasons. The 1st because the concept of free association and speech is hollow when the government is always listening.
That said, to clarify how the letter is not being violated, at least in their eyes:
"Unreasonable" is interpreted to mean that searches and seizures are Constitutional in any case where you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Since email travels in the clear (mostly) and when you use a cloud service you are giving the information to an untrusted third party, the courts hold that you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
We can wail and gnash our teeth all we want. It is, to me, unquestionably a violation of the principles upon which this nation was founded. And we should. We should make it clear to everyone we know that this is going on, and ask that the policy be changed.
Meanwhile, we (information science professionals, enthusiasts, and hobbyists) should focus on the letter-of-the-law side as well. Restore the reasonable expectation of privacy in electronic communication. Endpoints, content, protocols, everything. It's not easy, but we can do it.
I have a project in that vein I'm working on. We all should.
Nice post -- well said. Some minor tweaks could make it a touch better, perhaps, but very well done. Thanks!
> Piracy is just the new socially acceptable temper tantrum.
I think they teach this on the first day of business school: If a major portion of your potential customers are throwing the same temper tantrum, and as a result you are not separating them from their money, you are doing it wrong.
Just my two cents, off the top of my head:
If I could pick up my 1,000 favorite albums in 256k or better, no-DRM, for $1,000 total, I would do it in a heartbeat. At $10 each, I have bought exactly one album so far.
The cool thing about digital distribution is that the marginal cost of production (the cost to create one additional item for purchase) is maybe a couple cents. Marketing (ie: iTunes) costs $0.30 per dollar.
Sell one album each to one million people for $10, that's $10m minus $3.5m for marginal production costs -- net $6.5m. Sell one album to 10 million people for $1, that's $10m minus $3.5m marginal production costs -- net $6.5m.
Would lowering the price by 90% increase sales by a factor of 10? Tough to say -- but at $1, most people will buy just about anything -- just look at the crap that sells in the App Store. :)
"So if you call God your Father, live your time as temporary residents on earth in fear. He is the God who judges all people by what they have done, and he doesn't play favorites."
- 1 Peter 1:17
"You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?"
- Matthew 7:16
Why should we see Satanism as a problem? What are these Satanists doing that is so dangerous?
I dig that they are violating cmds 1, 2, 3 or 1, 2, 4 (depending on your set), but are those really fruit-bearing or acts-related stuff? Now, if they're sacrificing people or something, yeah, that's a problem. But just being Satanists isn't that big an issue. In a court of law based strictly on the new testament, without further evidence, I think I could get them off.
I'm obviously being a little facetious. The point, though, is that saying "Satanism! Boogah BOogah Boogha!" is not a very compelling call to arms. Show me what they have done, show me the fruits they have borne, if you want to get me concerned. I suspect modern Satanism is a lot like most other modern religions -- periodic cosplay with no significant impact on most practitioners daily behavior.
"If you make a habit of punishing "the CEO", then "the CEO" will be a fall guy hired by whoever actually runs the company."
When that happens, we should adapt, and start prosecuting the President, or the Chairman, or the Third Scullion's Maid, or whomever is in charge. The hypothesis that maybe, in the future, "CEO" may not mean senior decision-maker does not have any bearing on whether he should be held accountable now.
We, as a global society, heap a great deal of accolades, accommodations, and compensation on those who successfully guide their corporations through the marketplace. That is as it should be. Likewise, when they turn their corporation into a pirate ship, we should hold them accountable for what happens.
From the article:
"The proposed settlement bars Google from misrepresenting the privacy or confidentiality of individualsâ(TM) information or misrepresenting compliance with the U.S.-E.U Safe Harbor or other privacy, security, or compliance programs."
I am confused. The article is from the FTC itself, so it seems unlikely that they got this part wrong.
Is this really saying that companies are not, by default, barred from misrepresenting their handling of individuals' information?
That seems so strikingly wrong that I am having a hard time believing that I am reading it correctly.
> Plus, the way things are discriminates against small businesses: GE can afford to hire accountants to eliminate its corporate tax burden, smaller companies can't.
Hear, Hear!
Thank you for pointing out this critical perspective.
> By the time encryption became available, the power was no longer in the hands of geeks and hackers.
Diffie and Hellman published in 1976, RSA in 1978.
Though the reason it was not a priority to our kind makes some amount of sense; when we controlled the Internet we didn't need encryption because we have honor and respect.
Yet it remains that only such honorable people as us were the only chance it ever had. I'm not faulting us for not doing it, I'm pointing out that since we did not, it could never be.
> If (example) Microsoft Outlook had made it a priority, then maybe it would have happened.
Indeed. And if Microsoft had made interoperability a priority, Office would be dead by now. I'm not saying they have any less culpability than us, just that their nature means it was never going to happen that way. Perhaps the same is true of us.
> only if both servers/client support it.
Exactly.