The revolutions you've mentioned were situations where almost the entire country wanted the same thing (not to be starving and/or oppressed). At the very least, the people in those countries at those times wanted it to be either one way or the other. They didn't want a million contradictory things, and certainly not a million contradictory things at once.
Very true, and the "bread and circuses" comment nails it. As long as we are not being hit over the head with the growing chasm between oligarch and peasant, we squabble (as Americans are wont to do) over petty things.
That is precisely the point. As long as appearances are kept up, we don't pay much attention. When the veil begins to fray (as when the bailout exposed the yawning gap between upper middle class and the people whose bonuses we were paying), things get a little testier. If it continues -- if it is self-catalyzing as I fear it may be -- we will continue down the path toward a unifying disgruntlement.
That is a future worth avoiding, IMO. Given the interconnectedness of the global economy and the way we lead and/or push other major economic powers to match our policies, if America stumbles it will cause long and deep reverberations. Even China, who has been so staunchly against adopting the worst bits of our economic system (and many of the best bits as well) is not insulated because they hold so much US debt.
I completely agree with you that we are not on the brink. But you seem sharp enough to look into the future, see what potential is there, and to be one of the minds that helps to seek a better path.
Nothing in this is contradictory. Like most people, particularly those with power and wealth, he wants everyone else to do something to reduce carbon emissions while he flies around in his private jet and pumps megawatts into his electro-fortress. See also Al Gore's mansion and The Governator's private jet commute from Malibu to Sacramento. Contrast with Ed Begley Jr, who seems to practice what he preaches -- and is the exception that proves the rule.
The rich and famous are only required to appear as though they want a better future, or we would rise up and slay them. Good PR does more to protect their aristocracy than making sacrifices -- the PR is all that the serfs know of the nobles.
>> At what point will the hardware capabilities exceed the software we can write?
> Never. More hardware means programmers can get away with writing less efficient code.
Which is good. Even if you believe in writing good code, this translates to allowing more layers of abstraction. Additional layers of abstraction are generally less efficient, and make it easier to wire together complex components. Consider inverse kinematics and physics engines as examples.
Consider how much you could improve the immersion of video games, for example, if you had the power and a library for real-time rendering of hair and fur at the individual strand level, maybe with fractal follicle mapping.
Re:Was it a cause of his legal trouble?
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Our Low-Tech Tax Code
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"if he [Stack] has a house and a plane he can pay his taxes."
I find this as compelling as, "Rich people can afford to pay more taxes." Which is to say; I do not find it compelling. The question is not what a person can afford to pay, it is what is the most economically efficient amount for them to pay. What amount maximizes the long term GDP of the nation? (and lest you think me a right-wing-nut or tax protester, I think that solution involves a significant shift back toward the PPC-adjusted tax policy of our rise to superpower(*))
Solving for efficient taxation is not tremendously complicated, but it is a bit more complex than the facile sound bite above.
Re:Can someone who understands the IRS explain?
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Our Low-Tech Tax Code
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· Score: 2, Interesting
In theory it's to protect the rights of workers so they get all the benefits of full time employees if that's what they are, however in reality it's to close a tax loophole. Ya see the thing is generally speaking capital gains tax is less than income and payroll tax. Consultants running their own companies generally pay capital gains on most of their income whereas employees pay income tax and their employers pay payroll tax, which generates more revenue for the government.
I like your post, not being argumentative.
The solution to the above, I propose, is to actually close the tax loophole. Eliminate the distinction between capital gains and labor income. It would put labor on an equal footing with capital provision. As a side benefit, it would help to stem the explosion of the American aristocracy.
To those who cry double taxation I would then add; eliminate the tax on corporate profit. If you tax only people, then you don't get these complexity problems. For those who play RPGs, you can compare these to class and race balance issues.
Not enough tax revenue? Simple -- check out the PPC adjusted 1954 tax code. Getting paid more always means taking home more, so there is motivation to excel. The more our system benefits your wealth concentration, the more you pay to support the system from which you benefit.
And if we still decide we want some benefit for long-term investment, I could acquiesce -- if we make it truly long term. Hold a stock for more than 5 years, we give you 10% off the taxes. Hold it for more than 10 years, 20% off. Or something like that. This would have a limiting effect on the quarterly-report oriented book-cooking and gutting of product quality and customer service.
Uneasy with taxing people based on inflation? Fine, adjust the taxable stock value according to the CPI. This would also motivate us to start being honest about the CPI, instead of using "CPI(*)" (* = not counting things that increase in price).
In truth, it is not the solutions that are hard. Being a well balanced capitalist economy is entirely possible. It is only the lack of honor and fortitude in D.C., and the lack of engaged citizenship by the public, that allows our system to continue to degrade.
Was Mohammed al-Mohammed a United States citizen? If he was, then you are right, this is a double standard. If not, then no, they are not the same. United States citizens have a peculiar duty to The Nation, documented in the Declaration of Independence. One I hope I never have to fulfill.
Joe Stack may have been wrong, and he may be guilty of homicide or manslaughter (possibly murder, but I think it would be hard to prove premeditated homicide if he didn't know who was going to die or even if anyone would die). But a terrorist? Given he is a citizen, I think that is a stretch.
Dissident? Yes. Violent? Yes. Extremist? Probably. Terrorist? Only if you brand The Founders the same.
Tim McVeigh? Evil fucker. Unabomber? Same. But terrorists? I think you paint with too broad a brush. When non-citizens use civilian-targeted violence to try to change the policies of a sovereign nation, that is terrorism. In the United States, when a citizen does so, it may be many things which deserve punishment, up to and including execution (if you believe, as I do, in the death penalty). But branding it terrorism does a disservice to those who fight real terrorism and shows an extreme lack of respect for the violent extremists who founded this nation.
I now view it as a viscous commercial enterprise that exploits the dreams of young athletes.
Viscous? Yes, those marketing sleazebags certainly are an oily bunch.:)
I've been flipping over to NBC every once in a while to see what they're showing. Most of the time I hit either a commercial or reporters sitting at a desk talking about events. My best guess is that their contract has limitations on the amount of actual event time they can show -- either a fixed cap or some kind of dollars per minute arrangement.
I hope the parents of the affected kids get a million bucks apiece from the district, and somebody in the school's administration goes to prison.
It is difficult for me to fault the taxpayers of the district for the administrator's action, or to see this as something that can be properly offset by money. As for the prison term, though -- completely agreed. And not just for any one person; for every person who helped make it happen. Just as the military has the concept of unlawful orders, so should the private world.
Refactoring a job needing Brooks' infinite asymptote of manpower into doable parts still leaves a set of tasks that only Boeing or IBM or EDS or Microsoft or Uncle Sam can do.
Network security is that sort of huge, huge mess. And thanks to exponential growth on existing infrastructure predicated on designs that are insecure, it is worsening, not improving.
Compare and contrast the network security capabilities of great, big, coherent Microsoft with those of tiny, fragmented, Linux and BSD.
Big does not always equal good. And in security, monoculture almost always equals bad.
Regarding a possible shutdown of the cell phone and Internet service to prevent a cascading effect, the group found out that federal agencies actually don't have the authority to do so, and that companies providing these services might be unwilling to do it when asked.
Another thing that might prove to be an issue is the Governors' reluctancy to put their power in the hands of the federal government, which would possibly lead to a nationalization of the National Guard.
Federal Times reports that "Attorney general" Gorelick mused on the idea of introducing laws that would allow the government to seize broader power for the time it takes to suppress a nation-wide cyber attack.
A simple two step plan for advancing authoritarianism:
1. Scare People 2. Seize More Power
What, precisely, would lead us to believe that the Federal government is sufficiently adept at cyber-security to improve upon the staged outcome of this theatrical "attack"? I want better cyber-security and think it is important, much like health care. I do not, however, believe that our government has the skills, the lack of corruption, the honor, or the honesty to do it well. Much like health care.
Tell me, fear-mongers, what you are going to do to solve the problem. Not just a thousand pages of blather within which to hide giveaways to key lobbying groups. Real solutions that the information science and economics communities can scrutinize. If you cannot provide that, you are just asking for power. You are taking liberty with a vapid hint that maybe it will help security. Nay, not even that -- you are taking liberty by shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Bullshit. Start by presenting the solution. Shove your fear-mongering up your ass.
And as for you CNN: You should be ashamed for being their puppet. Sacrificing your journalistic integrity at the alter of the exclusive. What will your pretty shock-graphic story title say? How about: "Cyberwar: Public at Peril"
every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States... shall register with the Secretary of State.
(1) "Subversive organization" means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means;
[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I know it is too late to be commenting on this thread, but I feel I must.
The Declaration of Independence advises the duty of overthrowing the government of the United States. The United States, in turn, is a society comprised of two or more persons which directly advises the duty of overthrowing the government of the United States (the distinction being the nation and the government). Furthermore the intended means for such overthrow is obviously the use of guns, as evidenced by the Second Amendment and extensive clarifying writings from the authors of the charter. The only remaining question is the final phrase of the S.C. law:
by force or violence or other unlawful means
Given that overthrowing the government is written into the charter of the nation, it seems obvious that it cannot be unlawful. It then falls to the question of the meaning of the phrase "...or other unlawful means". If that phrase implies that the previous factors "force" or "violence" are only covered if they are unlawful means, then this law does not apply to United States citizens. If not, then it applies to all United States citizens.
Given the uncertainty of such vague phrasing in courts of law, I think that South Carolina must intend for all United States citizens to register. However, registration costs $5. That leads to only one conclusion: Like most states South Carolina is having budget problems and is hoping to close the gap by collecting $1.5 billion in registration fees.
A British opponent of the idea (and supporter of the UK's draconian libel laws) is quoted: "The provisions allowing defendants to counter-sue 'libel tourists' in their home courts could transform the humble Icelander into a legal superman, virtually untouchable abroad for comment written -- and uploaded -- at home."
That is supposed to be a persuasive argument against Icelanders passing the law?!? That Icelanders would be less susceptible to being sued abroad under laws they have not enacted and have no reason to be familiar with? That "the humble Icelander" would gain the benefits traditionally associated with sovereignty?
In an attempt to understand what must be some subtle power to this apparently dimwitted rhetoric, let us explore the following hypothetical argument in favor of abstinence:
'Sex is a lot of fun. It is so much fun that it gave rise to the phrase, "[Some other thing] is the most fun you can have with your clothes on." That phrase plays on the common recognition that sex is the most fun you can have, without qualification. It is fantastic, quite literally, on a genetic level. But you should abstain.'
I'm sure everyone that hated Bush is OK with Obama doing this.
Your surety is mistaken. I hated Bush (maybe hate is too strong -- I found him to be an abject failure as President), and I voted for Obama. I find his about-face on defending The Constitution to be loathsome. Sufficiently so that barring a fantastic reverse in course and taking genuine action to restore The Constitution, I will vote against him.
"[...T]he Constitution is a charter of negative liberties -- says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you,"
That is exactly correct. The Constitution has some very specific rules about what the government is not allowed to do. Those rules are the most important part of The Constitution, and the only persuasive argument against them at the time was that enumerating them could lead down a path where people would argue that those were the only restrictions on government (we have done that, and gone further to positing that other portions of The Constitution supercede the limitations, which is absolute folly).
But the above statement, tortured though the term "negative liberties" is, is exactly correct. The liberties guaranteed by The Constitution are so guaranteed by negating the government's authority to infringe them.
"but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted."
The second statement above seems to be explaining that The Constitution grants no explicit authority to the government, and certainly nothing that could grant it power beyond the circumscriptions mentioned in the first quote. That is precisely the sort of interpretation that I (a little 'l' libertarian) would like the President to hold.
Is the point of invoking the Odyssey quote to point out that he does not adhere to his stated beliefs (a point on which I wholeheartedly agree), or is there a supposition that the Odyssey quote itself betrays a conflict with The Constitution? If the latter, could you elaborate please? I am not following, but I am deeply interested.
Since a 3rd trial in and of itself makes no economic sense, and since the RIAA's lawyers inappropriately added 7 pages of legal argument to their 'notice', it can only be assumed that the reason they are opting for a 3rd trial is to hope that they can somehow bait the Judge into making an error that will help them on an appeal.
Isn't another possible reason; to use the legal process as punishment? There are cases between established enterprises and upstart competitors where the presumed motive of the enterprise was to bleed the competitor through legal entanglement, even though they have little chance of winning. Admittedly in this case the RIAA presumably does not hope to forestall some future loss of revenue, but couldn't they just be plain old vindictive?
As the old saying goes: Never ascribe to strategy what can be explained by simple malice. (OK, that's a new spin on an old classic, but still)
not to write in a special exemption for a particular company.... For starters, we should have an orphan works provision,
Calling the Slashdot research department:
Does anyone have a link to an article with the quotes from some Google exec saying that the reason this right should be conferred on Google, and not create a general orphan works provision, was because Google invested in the legal muscle to make the deal happen?
I just poked around for it, but could not find it. I remember being moderately swayed at the time (must have been a Jedi mind trick, or my deep-set capitalism feuding with my equally deep-set belief in blind Lady Justice), but it seems ludicrous on reflection that they were basically saying legal entitlement belongs to those who can afford it.
Is China going on the offensive? It would not be a terribly wrong move, from a warfighting perspective. Give a taste of what real cyberwar looks like, then tell your opponents to stop the pissing and moaning about what they see as reasonable information management.
But it could also be someone bent on destabilizing China. Pakistan, perhaps. The iron is hot for the striking. Perfect time to try to foment international pressure.
Or by Chinese dissidents themselves.
Who can tell?
Only us. We, information scientists, are the only soldiers that matter in this war.
We are at the beginning, the very early dawn, of the information age. This is not only true in war but in commerce as well. We are the new gods. Prepare, and begin, to demand your full account.
The constitution doesn't give you, or a business formed by you and a friend, any rights. The constitution is there to limit the government's ability to take those rights away.
On the level of persons (not fake persons, real ones -- that arrived via a birth canal), you are correct.
On the level of businesses, you are incorrect.
Business charters (and union charters, and lobby articles of organization, etc) are all legal documents. They are constructs of, by, and for the people. They exist to serve us. They are not people. Their right to engage in trade is granted by us, through the government. The money they use for trade is a fiat of our government, authorized by us. Their right to engage in barter is severely restricted, because the dollars enable us to monitor them. Their trade is regulated. And most of all: They are not people.
Here's a simple test for their person-hood: When you dissolve a union (or corporation, or lobby), have you committed murder?
No? Then they are not poeple.
I love corporations (and I have a grudging acceptance for unions, and I despise lobbies). I think they are tremendously valuable constructs of a somewhat flawed attempt at free market economics which I believe still holds the hope of being the envy of the world (though I think we are on the wrong course at the moment). Corporations are great. But they are not people.
We The People come first. We the people, arrived on this Earth via birth canal, have rights. We choose to give up a small portion of our liberty to institute governments, which are our servants, not our masters. The government charters corporations, creates fiat money, and regulates trade. Freedom from government belongs to We The People. Corporations do not have rights. They don't have the right to life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. If a corporate raider attacks a corporation, slaughters it, and sells the meat for profit, he has done nothing wrong. Corporations are not people, and they have no rights.
Don't Kill the Messenger: Blaming IE for Attacks is Dangerous
Don't obfuscate the message. Blaming IE for being susceptible to attacks is entirely valid.
So is blaming Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, Konquerer, and Safari when they are vulnerable.
It's all nice and tidy to say "The attackers are to blame." But we don't have control over them. We do have control over which software we use. And if we continually abandon less secure software for more secure alternatives, we will have a continually improving software ecosystem. That will not always mean abandoning IE (well, it may not always mean abandoning IE -- seriously, someday IE might be the most secure option -- stop laughing, it could happen, hypothetically), but it does mean always abandoning whoever fucked up most egregiously most recently. Feedback works.
Surely you troll, or are you simply being facetious? You must be capable of comprehending that my implication was that if you are intentionally using an insecure channel, considering the data which you send through that channel to be secure is folly. Please, do us all a favor, and attempt to grasp the intent without assuming that the poster is retarded. This community, including myself, deserves better.
Using an untrusted proxy (and I assume you don't trust some third party corporation whose contract with you essentially says "all your base are belong to us") to handle your SSL connections is the same as not using SSL.
If the site does not offer HTTPS, it is good practice to assume the information you store there is not secure.
Fixed that for you. Data sent in the clear is not secure.
From this we can make another logical step: Therefore this is not a security issue. Data which is not secure cannot have a security issue. It is already public.
I was only thinking of the short run, in which people's AP detectors only tell them one bit of information. I think you are absolutely right that we (the makers of lightning) should advocate for the long term better solution of having two bits of information (publicly available and supports encryption), and should seek to make both bits true where possible.
Slashdot Mirror
The revolutions you've mentioned were situations where almost the entire country wanted the same thing (not to be starving and/or oppressed). At the very least, the people in those countries at those times wanted it to be either one way or the other. They didn't want a million contradictory things, and certainly not a million contradictory things at once.
Very true, and the "bread and circuses" comment nails it. As long as we are not being hit over the head with the growing chasm between oligarch and peasant, we squabble (as Americans are wont to do) over petty things.
That is precisely the point. As long as appearances are kept up, we don't pay much attention. When the veil begins to fray (as when the bailout exposed the yawning gap between upper middle class and the people whose bonuses we were paying), things get a little testier. If it continues -- if it is self-catalyzing as I fear it may be -- we will continue down the path toward a unifying disgruntlement.
That is a future worth avoiding, IMO. Given the interconnectedness of the global economy and the way we lead and/or push other major economic powers to match our policies, if America stumbles it will cause long and deep reverberations. Even China, who has been so staunchly against adopting the worst bits of our economic system (and many of the best bits as well) is not insulated because they hold so much US debt.
I completely agree with you that we are not on the brink. But you seem sharp enough to look into the future, see what potential is there, and to be one of the minds that helps to seek a better path.
>> The rich and famous are only required to appear as though they want a better future, or we would rise up and slay them.
> Oh come on, we would do no such thing.
Here are four examples (the causes being mixes of wealth and power):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_(1917)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution
Nothing in this is contradictory. Like most people, particularly those with power and wealth, he wants everyone else to do something to reduce carbon emissions while he flies around in his private jet and pumps megawatts into his electro-fortress. See also Al Gore's mansion and The Governator's private jet commute from Malibu to Sacramento. Contrast with Ed Begley Jr, who seems to practice what he preaches -- and is the exception that proves the rule.
The rich and famous are only required to appear as though they want a better future, or we would rise up and slay them. Good PR does more to protect their aristocracy than making sacrifices -- the PR is all that the serfs know of the nobles.
>> At what point will the hardware capabilities exceed the software we can write?
> Never. More hardware means programmers can get away with writing less efficient code.
Which is good. Even if you believe in writing good code, this translates to allowing more layers of abstraction. Additional layers of abstraction are generally less efficient, and make it easier to wire together complex components. Consider inverse kinematics and physics engines as examples.
Consider how much you could improve the immersion of video games, for example, if you had the power and a library for real-time rendering of hair and fur at the individual strand level, maybe with fractal follicle mapping.
"if he [Stack] has a house and a plane he can pay his taxes."
I find this as compelling as, "Rich people can afford to pay more taxes." Which is to say; I do not find it compelling. The question is not what a person can afford to pay, it is what is the most economically efficient amount for them to pay. What amount maximizes the long term GDP of the nation? (and lest you think me a right-wing-nut or tax protester, I think that solution involves a significant shift back toward the PPC-adjusted tax policy of our rise to superpower(*))
Solving for efficient taxation is not tremendously complicated, but it is a bit more complex than the facile sound bite above.
* See 1954 tax code here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code_of_1986
In theory it's to protect the rights of workers so they get all the benefits of full time employees if that's what they are, however in reality it's to close a tax loophole. Ya see the thing is generally speaking capital gains tax is less than income and payroll tax. Consultants running their own companies generally pay capital gains on most of their income whereas employees pay income tax and their employers pay payroll tax, which generates more revenue for the government.
I like your post, not being argumentative.
The solution to the above, I propose, is to actually close the tax loophole. Eliminate the distinction between capital gains and labor income. It would put labor on an equal footing with capital provision. As a side benefit, it would help to stem the explosion of the American aristocracy.
To those who cry double taxation I would then add; eliminate the tax on corporate profit. If you tax only people, then you don't get these complexity problems. For those who play RPGs, you can compare these to class and race balance issues.
Not enough tax revenue? Simple -- check out the PPC adjusted 1954 tax code. Getting paid more always means taking home more, so there is motivation to excel. The more our system benefits your wealth concentration, the more you pay to support the system from which you benefit.
And if we still decide we want some benefit for long-term investment, I could acquiesce -- if we make it truly long term. Hold a stock for more than 5 years, we give you 10% off the taxes. Hold it for more than 10 years, 20% off. Or something like that. This would have a limiting effect on the quarterly-report oriented book-cooking and gutting of product quality and customer service.
Uneasy with taxing people based on inflation? Fine, adjust the taxable stock value according to the CPI. This would also motivate us to start being honest about the CPI, instead of using "CPI(*)" (* = not counting things that increase in price).
In truth, it is not the solutions that are hard. Being a well balanced capitalist economy is entirely possible. It is only the lack of honor and fortitude in D.C., and the lack of engaged citizenship by the public, that allows our system to continue to degrade.
Was Mohammed al-Mohammed a United States citizen? If he was, then you are right, this is a double standard. If not, then no, they are not the same. United States citizens have a peculiar duty to The Nation, documented in the Declaration of Independence. One I hope I never have to fulfill.
Joe Stack may have been wrong, and he may be guilty of homicide or manslaughter (possibly murder, but I think it would be hard to prove premeditated homicide if he didn't know who was going to die or even if anyone would die). But a terrorist? Given he is a citizen, I think that is a stretch.
Dissident? Yes. Violent? Yes. Extremist? Probably. Terrorist? Only if you brand The Founders the same.
Tim McVeigh? Evil fucker. Unabomber? Same. But terrorists? I think you paint with too broad a brush. When non-citizens use civilian-targeted violence to try to change the policies of a sovereign nation, that is terrorism. In the United States, when a citizen does so, it may be many things which deserve punishment, up to and including execution (if you believe, as I do, in the death penalty). But branding it terrorism does a disservice to those who fight real terrorism and shows an extreme lack of respect for the violent extremists who founded this nation.
I now view it as a viscous commercial enterprise that exploits the dreams of young athletes.
Viscous? Yes, those marketing sleazebags certainly are an oily bunch. :)
I've been flipping over to NBC every once in a while to see what they're showing. Most of the time I hit either a commercial or reporters sitting at a desk talking about events. My best guess is that their contract has limitations on the amount of actual event time they can show -- either a fixed cap or some kind of dollars per minute arrangement.
Which is to say; I share your disillusionment.
I hope the parents of the affected kids get a million bucks apiece from the district, and somebody in the school's administration goes to prison.
It is difficult for me to fault the taxpayers of the district for the administrator's action, or to see this as something that can be properly offset by money. As for the prison term, though -- completely agreed. And not just for any one person; for every person who helped make it happen. Just as the military has the concept of unlawful orders, so should the private world.
Solves all symptoms. The problem remains.
Author! Author! -- Succinct and provocative. Well played.
Refactoring a job needing Brooks' infinite asymptote of manpower into doable parts still leaves a set of tasks that only Boeing or IBM or EDS or Microsoft or Uncle Sam can do.
Network security is that sort of huge, huge mess. And thanks to exponential growth on existing infrastructure predicated on designs that are insecure, it is worsening, not improving.
Compare and contrast the network security capabilities of great, big, coherent Microsoft with those of tiny, fragmented, Linux and BSD.
Big does not always equal good. And in security, monoculture almost always equals bad.
Regarding a possible shutdown of the cell phone and Internet service to prevent a cascading effect, the group found out that federal agencies actually don't have the authority to do so, and that companies providing these services might be unwilling to do it when asked.
Another thing that might prove to be an issue is the Governors' reluctancy to put their power in the hands of the federal government, which would possibly lead to a nationalization of the National Guard.
Federal Times reports that "Attorney general" Gorelick mused on the idea of introducing laws that would allow the government to seize broader power for the time it takes to suppress a nation-wide cyber attack.
A simple two step plan for advancing authoritarianism:
1. Scare People
2. Seize More Power
What, precisely, would lead us to believe that the Federal government is sufficiently adept at cyber-security to improve upon the staged outcome of this theatrical "attack"? I want better cyber-security and think it is important, much like health care. I do not, however, believe that our government has the skills, the lack of corruption, the honor, or the honesty to do it well. Much like health care.
Tell me, fear-mongers, what you are going to do to solve the problem. Not just a thousand pages of blather within which to hide giveaways to key lobbying groups. Real solutions that the information science and economics communities can scrutinize. If you cannot provide that, you are just asking for power. You are taking liberty with a vapid hint that maybe it will help security. Nay, not even that -- you are taking liberty by shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Bullshit. Start by presenting the solution. Shove your fear-mongering up your ass.
And as for you CNN: You should be ashamed for being their puppet. Sacrificing your journalistic integrity at the alter of the exclusive. What will your pretty shock-graphic story title say? How about: "Cyberwar: Public at Peril"
every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State.
(1) "Subversive organization" means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means;
[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
I know it is too late to be commenting on this thread, but I feel I must.
The Declaration of Independence advises the duty of overthrowing the government of the United States. The United States, in turn, is a society comprised of two or more persons which directly advises the duty of overthrowing the government of the United States (the distinction being the nation and the government). Furthermore the intended means for such overthrow is obviously the use of guns, as evidenced by the Second Amendment and extensive clarifying writings from the authors of the charter. The only remaining question is the final phrase of the S.C. law:
by force or violence or other unlawful means
Given that overthrowing the government is written into the charter of the nation, it seems obvious that it cannot be unlawful. It then falls to the question of the meaning of the phrase "...or other unlawful means". If that phrase implies that the previous factors "force" or "violence" are only covered if they are unlawful means, then this law does not apply to United States citizens. If not, then it applies to all United States citizens.
Given the uncertainty of such vague phrasing in courts of law, I think that South Carolina must intend for all United States citizens to register. However, registration costs $5. That leads to only one conclusion: Like most states South Carolina is having budget problems and is hoping to close the gap by collecting $1.5 billion in registration fees.
A British opponent of the idea (and supporter of the UK's draconian libel laws) is quoted: "The provisions allowing defendants to counter-sue 'libel tourists' in their home courts could transform the humble Icelander into a legal superman, virtually untouchable abroad for comment written -- and uploaded -- at home."
That is supposed to be a persuasive argument against Icelanders passing the law?!? That Icelanders would be less susceptible to being sued abroad under laws they have not enacted and have no reason to be familiar with? That "the humble Icelander" would gain the benefits traditionally associated with sovereignty?
In an attempt to understand what must be some subtle power to this apparently dimwitted rhetoric, let us explore the following hypothetical argument in favor of abstinence:
'Sex is a lot of fun. It is so much fun that it gave rise to the phrase, "[Some other thing] is the most fun you can have with your clothes on." That phrase plays on the common recognition that sex is the most fun you can have, without qualification. It is fantastic, quite literally, on a genetic level. But you should abstain.'
Hmmm, nope, still sounds stupid.
I'm sure everyone that hated Bush is OK with Obama doing this.
Your surety is mistaken. I hated Bush (maybe hate is too strong -- I found him to be an abject failure as President), and I voted for Obama. I find his about-face on defending The Constitution to be loathsome. Sufficiently so that barring a fantastic reverse in course and taking genuine action to restore The Constitution, I will vote against him.
"[...T]he Constitution is a charter of negative liberties -- says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you,"
That is exactly correct. The Constitution has some very specific rules about what the government is not allowed to do. Those rules are the most important part of The Constitution, and the only persuasive argument against them at the time was that enumerating them could lead down a path where people would argue that those were the only restrictions on government (we have done that, and gone further to positing that other portions of The Constitution supercede the limitations, which is absolute folly).
But the above statement, tortured though the term "negative liberties" is, is exactly correct. The liberties guaranteed by The Constitution are so guaranteed by negating the government's authority to infringe them.
"but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted."
The second statement above seems to be explaining that The Constitution grants no explicit authority to the government, and certainly nothing that could grant it power beyond the circumscriptions mentioned in the first quote. That is precisely the sort of interpretation that I (a little 'l' libertarian) would like the President to hold.
Is the point of invoking the Odyssey quote to point out that he does not adhere to his stated beliefs (a point on which I wholeheartedly agree), or is there a supposition that the Odyssey quote itself betrays a conflict with The Constitution? If the latter, could you elaborate please? I am not following, but I am deeply interested.
Since a 3rd trial in and of itself makes no economic sense, and since the RIAA's lawyers inappropriately added 7 pages of legal argument to their 'notice', it can only be assumed that the reason they are opting for a 3rd trial is to hope that they can somehow bait the Judge into making an error that will help them on an appeal.
Isn't another possible reason; to use the legal process as punishment? There are cases between established enterprises and upstart competitors where the presumed motive of the enterprise was to bleed the competitor through legal entanglement, even though they have little chance of winning. Admittedly in this case the RIAA presumably does not hope to forestall some future loss of revenue, but couldn't they just be plain old vindictive?
As the old saying goes: Never ascribe to strategy what can be explained by simple malice. (OK, that's a new spin on an old classic, but still)
not to write in a special exemption for a particular company. ... For starters, we should have an orphan works provision,
Calling the Slashdot research department:
Does anyone have a link to an article with the quotes from some Google exec saying that the reason this right should be conferred on Google, and not create a general orphan works provision, was because Google invested in the legal muscle to make the deal happen?
I just poked around for it, but could not find it. I remember being moderately swayed at the time (must have been a Jedi mind trick, or my deep-set capitalism feuding with my equally deep-set belief in blind Lady Justice), but it seems ludicrous on reflection that they were basically saying legal entitlement belongs to those who can afford it.
the number of patent cases filed yearly is on the rise significantly when normalized against the number of patents granted yearly.
Number of patents granted are also on the rise significantly when normalized against GDP.
Is China going on the offensive? It would not be a terribly wrong move, from a warfighting perspective. Give a taste of what real cyberwar looks like, then tell your opponents to stop the pissing and moaning about what they see as reasonable information management.
But it could also be someone bent on destabilizing China. Pakistan, perhaps. The iron is hot for the striking. Perfect time to try to foment international pressure.
Or by Chinese dissidents themselves.
Who can tell?
Only us. We, information scientists, are the only soldiers that matter in this war.
We are at the beginning, the very early dawn, of the information age. This is not only true in war but in commerce as well. We are the new gods. Prepare, and begin, to demand your full account.
The constitution doesn't give you, or a business formed by you and a friend, any rights. The constitution is there to limit the government's ability to take those rights away.
On the level of persons (not fake persons, real ones -- that arrived via a birth canal), you are correct.
On the level of businesses, you are incorrect.
Business charters (and union charters, and lobby articles of organization, etc) are all legal documents. They are constructs of, by, and for the people. They exist to serve us. They are not people. Their right to engage in trade is granted by us, through the government. The money they use for trade is a fiat of our government, authorized by us. Their right to engage in barter is severely restricted, because the dollars enable us to monitor them. Their trade is regulated. And most of all: They are not people.
Here's a simple test for their person-hood: When you dissolve a union (or corporation, or lobby), have you committed murder?
No? Then they are not poeple.
I love corporations (and I have a grudging acceptance for unions, and I despise lobbies). I think they are tremendously valuable constructs of a somewhat flawed attempt at free market economics which I believe still holds the hope of being the envy of the world (though I think we are on the wrong course at the moment). Corporations are great. But they are not people.
We The People come first. We the people, arrived on this Earth via birth canal, have rights. We choose to give up a small portion of our liberty to institute governments, which are our servants, not our masters. The government charters corporations, creates fiat money, and regulates trade. Freedom from government belongs to We The People. Corporations do not have rights. They don't have the right to life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. If a corporate raider attacks a corporation, slaughters it, and sells the meat for profit, he has done nothing wrong. Corporations are not people, and they have no rights.
Don't Kill the Messenger: Blaming IE for Attacks is Dangerous
Don't obfuscate the message. Blaming IE for being susceptible to attacks is entirely valid.
So is blaming Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, Konquerer, and Safari when they are vulnerable.
It's all nice and tidy to say "The attackers are to blame." But we don't have control over them. We do have control over which software we use. And if we continually abandon less secure software for more secure alternatives, we will have a continually improving software ecosystem. That will not always mean abandoning IE (well, it may not always mean abandoning IE -- seriously, someday IE might be the most secure option -- stop laughing, it could happen, hypothetically), but it does mean always abandoning whoever fucked up most egregiously most recently. Feedback works.
Surely you troll, or are you simply being facetious? You must be capable of comprehending that my implication was that if you are intentionally using an insecure channel, considering the data which you send through that channel to be secure is folly. Please, do us all a favor, and attempt to grasp the intent without assuming that the poster is retarded. This community, including myself, deserves better.
Using an untrusted proxy (and I assume you don't trust some third party corporation whose contract with you essentially says "all your base are belong to us") to handle your SSL connections is the same as not using SSL.
If the site does not offer HTTPS, it is good practice to assume the information you store there is not secure.
Fixed that for you. Data sent in the clear is not secure.
From this we can make another logical step: Therefore this is not a security issue. Data which is not secure cannot have a security issue. It is already public.
I like your solution very much!
I was only thinking of the short run, in which people's AP detectors only tell them one bit of information. I think you are absolutely right that we (the makers of lightning) should advocate for the long term better solution of having two bits of information (publicly available and supports encryption), and should seek to make both bits true where possible.